


Mysterious Ways

by nessauepa



Category: SKAM (Norway), SKAM (TV) RPF
Genre: 50's, 60's, Buddy Holly - Freeform, Elvis Presley - Freeform, Forbidden Love, Intense, Light Angst, M/M, Playlist, They are each other soulmates, They just dont know how to tell the world, extra intense, ritchie valens - Freeform, what if isak and even had met each other in the 50s
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-06-09 11:23:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 38,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15266445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nessauepa/pseuds/nessauepa
Summary: Sneak peek at the latest chapter:--Dec 24th, 1961"Even is his world, and is fallen apart. Even is killing him, is breaking his heart. They don't know what is that Even has, or if there is an escape from it. They say harsh labels don't fit his Even, manic-depressed, psychotic, neurotic. But when Isak's throat is about to close in on itself, it's when Isak looks at him like this, sleeping with his baby fat lips, and suddenly his heart gets at ease."--What if Isak and Even had fallen in love in the 60's?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alwaysevak2121](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alwaysevak2121/gifts).



> It all started with an ask from https://evakvsp.tumblr.com/ giving me a "slow dance" prompt.  
> I got carried away.

**Prom, 1958**

 

_This song is playing_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/7caj6X6NMX3tlhWnu1du6V>

 

Isak runs away from the crowd, from blue and impeccable smiles. Through empty corridors, to the bathroom, anywhere, it doesn’t really matter. Just for a bit of sanity, just a little bit is enough. Isak stomps into the bathroom and breathes for the first time in a night. A single deep breath that fills his lungs and it’s so good. But it lasts just a moment, though, until the atmosphere changes again. Isak doesn’t need more than the hairs in his body standing up and the electric tingling that follows to know it. _Him._

Isak turns around and his mind screams, and if Even weren’t there he would be squeezing his head with his hands, as he has done so many times before. Isak wants to leave his skin, to run away from his thoughts.

When Isak looks at him he doesn’t even pretend anymore, Isak falters, his breath leaves him, and Even is there looking at him the exact same way. They are broken. They are utterly torn.

Even steps forward, and Isak does nothing, he is heavy. Even tries another step, and Isak wants to die and rebirth.

_What is this? What is this?_

_No,_ the word that never leaves his mouth.

Even closes their distance, and Isak now needs to flicker his lashes, needs to stop feeling this way too, but he doesn’t. All the stolen glances, the nervous words exchanged through the years, which can be counted in the fingers of one hand, every repressed feeling seems to converge to this very moment.

Isak is shaking, he realizes, his body is in an internal earthquake, this is everything he has ever feared and dreamed. This is wrong.

“I can’t,” Even hardly says it, and Isak whole body has a new wave of chills.

Even sounds desperate and beautiful, but Even is always beautiful. Maybe is because Even looks like a girl, Isak thinks, with his silky hair and delicate eyelashes. At a certain point, Isak has even convinced himself of it, truly believed in it. But Isak knows this is a blatant bullshit, knows that at night when every single thought and desire blows up, he is thinking of flat and hard chests, prominent Adam’s apple and the strongest lines of his face. About everything that makes Even a man.

_Even._

“What are you doing here?”

It was never this bad, it has to be the spiked punch! Damn, damn Magnus. It’s the demon, the evil acting upon him.

Even darts both hands to hold Isak’s wrists, and Isak whimpers, he fucking whimpers, staring in trance at his trapped hands. It’s not gentle, but Even’s grip is loose, it’s no jail.

“What are you doing?” Isak whispers, scandalized, but he doesn’t move.

“It’s not just in my head,” Even says desperately, as asking for confirmation.

Even slides his hands up Isak’s arms and Isak’s head loses strength and tilts back, and then there is blue. Blue piercing his soul as Even drives Isak’s inert arms to his neck. Isak just let him.

“I made a deal with the Universe,” says Even. “If I can dance with you, just once, it will set me free.”

“I’m not a girl!”

“You think I haven’t notice that?!” says Even, but he is leaning forward, his arms dangling weirdly by his side like he can’t move until Isak allows him.

“Why are you yelling at me?” says Isak, still hanging on Even’s neck. It’s absurd.

“You wouldn’t like the alternative.”

So far this is the longest talk they have ever had. Nonsense.

Something in Even changes.

“Please, let me have this,” Even seems about to cry.

Isak doesn’t know what to do, something shifts inside him.

“Please,” Even begs with his eyes and Isak feels weak, feels suddenly like every word he has ever been called of is justified.

“Why me?” says Isak, and it’s the same question he has been asking God.

“I don’t know,” Even chuckles unamusedly. “Believe me, I don’t fucking know.”

Isak feels himself burning from the inside.

“You made me this way!” Isak spills accusingly, through clenched teeth, fighting the imminent tears threatening to take him.

And somehow it’s liberating, to finally have someone to put the blame on.

Every single muscle in Even’s face loosens until he is a blank ghost.

“I’m sorry,” says Even and he seems genuinely sincere, genuinely regretted.

It’s nonsensical, all of this. Isak wants to laugh out of despair. But looking at Even crushed like that, it only turns his insides over.

“Okay,” Isak whispers.

“Okay?” Even breath hitches, like he wasn’t expecting it, not in a million years.

“No one can know about this," Isak bargains with the devil, he can’t quite believe his own words.

Even nods eagerly.

 

_This song starts_

[ https://open.spotify.com/track/0VE4ayVlGs5DBoqOdgJ0Zv](https://open.spotify.com/track/0VE4ayVlGs5DBoqOdgJ0Zv)

 

And Isak doesn’t know what to expect, but when Even’s hands find his waist, his body takes over, his head falls back, his lungs ask for air. Isak seeks for it through parted lips, shutting his eyes closed, can’t stand looking at him like this.

“Isak,” says Even shocked. He doesn’t know what Even is seeing.

It’s the first time Even has said his name.

One breath, forehead against forehead. Crazy, crazy breath, and they are sliding cheek against cheek, it’s a spell. Isak barely hears the muffled song playing in another world. So, so sweet.

Isak pulls Even’s hair on his nape until his hands are hurting, and maybe he wants to cause pain, wants to cause a revolution. Isak is angry with the world. Maybe he just wants to show Even he is no girl that he can just take? Even responds in an equally urgent grip on his waist, imprinting his fingers there, and Isak doesn’t have anything in him to give a shit anymore.

_Mark me, mark me._

_Gosh._

And Even does, Even grips him and rocks them together as a way to get some of the pain out of his system. They sway together, panting. Even sizes him and feels Isak’s body, he is trying to memorize Isak. Isak, who is exhaling indistinguishable words now, as Even hands take everything with them, his want, his decency, his last drop of any power will.

They are moving, spinning in the middle of a hurricane.

Even wraps his arms around Isak’s back and pulls him, harshly, closer, and Isak feels another man’s bulge pressed on his skin. He knows it’s a sin, unforgivable, but his body doesn’t know it and moves against it.

“Fuck,” Even mutters and Isak shudders, from toes to head.

The sounds Even make, Isak hasn’t known men could be this soft.

Eternal damnation has never seemed so worthy.

Even gropes Isak until finding his face and then locks Isak there. Isak doesn’t dare to look, he knows he can’t. But his lips part more and more nevertheless, the traitors. Isak feels blood pulsating through them, invitingly. Isak is a sheep.

“Fuck, your mouth.”

Even presses his lips against Isak’s cheek and Isak gasps, his head making a graceful and unstudied move that leads Even’s lips to brush all over his sensitive skin. Chills. Somehow, someway, Isak’s lips find Even’s skin too. But this is no kiss, it’s more an experience.

Some song is playing, somewhere, on some planet, while they’re finding the key to a better one, where touches can silence thoughts. Isak is free! Their lips attack skin, lingering pecks covering any available surface.

It’s wet, maybe it’s Isak crying.

Even puckers his lips, tentatively, boldly. It’s a proposal, it’s the gates of hell.

When Isak turns his head to meet them, his heart explodes, Their mouths take the reins, flesh on flesh. Their tongues met, and Isak doesn’t give a shit anymore, they stroke their mouths together, eagerly, no coherent thoughts, no feelings. It’s need, it’s no kiss.

Isak commits every detail to memory, Even’s smell, Even driving his jaw just where he wants it, controlling the angle, controlling the flow, how their mouths slow down at some point, deepening a kiss that reaches the soul.

At some point, it’s just sweet, unbearable and outrageous.

_What is this?_

Isak will accept it, whatever it is, will take every remembrance to hell with him, so he can create his own personal heaven in there. If God can just concede this one and only wish, just the memories of his happiest moment, he wouldn’t mind giving up heaven for this.

It’s Isak’s first kiss.

When the song ends, when their mouths part, dormant, infinite minutes later, they keep giving small pecks, it’s impossible to end. It’s so sweet.

When the world finally comes into focus again, when somehow they manage to stop, it’s to Even saying:

“I’m getting married.”

_God moves in mysterious ways._

Isak breaks up with God right there and then.

And it’s funny, this little gray mass called brain. How it can stick to stupid details like the exact sensation of two bodies peeling off but can erase whole hours after that. Limbo. It’s amazing, really, how it can associate the exact tone of blue with the specific amount of pain, but can’t remember simple words said. How stupid is that, that one can’t remember the last words to the first one?

Isak meets him again. It’s 1960.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I turned this into a series. *sighs*

**Christmas Market, 1960**

 

_This song is playing on the speakers_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/6zwvB879PJSpTyFcg2wwnL>

 

It's one of those rare and bright December days when the Sun and the cold decide to flirt, everything is scintillating and white. The children's giggles are louder and the market more crowded. It's around Christmas, and the world is inviting, is the one day of the year when everyone is in good spirits.

 _It's like a radio with movies_ , Isak thinks, in front of the crowdest window, where a bunch of curious stares at the same TV device. Not Isak, though, it's no curiosity if he just happens to be positioned at that pole light. It's no stare if he is blase about it. Isak doesn't form part of this herd of country people, dazzled and exhaling excited _ohs_ , not if he is peeking through the corner of his eyes.

If anything, Isak's curiosity is purely scientific, has always been, Isak is no country folk. The truth is, Isak is better than them, he thinks. And it's funny because he also thinks he has no worth. Isak is an ambiguity, a guy that sometimes can't quite not to notice other men.

Isak doesn't overthink things today, though, it's sunny, just for one day.

Perhaps it's because of the day, Isak is in a good mood, can't quite stop the corners of his mouth curving up time to time. To strangers! It's still like that when he finally fixes his gloves and grabs the bags on the floor. The smile is there, but who cares, today he doesn't fight it, let it be.

It's still there when he is nearly knocked out to the floor. And if it were any other day, but it's not, it's today! Isak just drops to one knee, taking off one glove with the help of his teeth to gather the bags spread on the floor. Isak is so out of it today that even the carnival created by his ruined cereal over the white snow is okay.

Isak is at ease, has given the frowns on his face a leave, it's still like that when he stands up, and at first, it's just legs. The accountable for his lost meal has infinity legs. Isak, the bags and the glove between his teeth are standing up, and it's easier to reach the skies than the end of these limbs.

When Isak spots the blue, it's within the roundest eyes widened at him. Synapses, synapses, synapses, imprinting forever in the brain a connection that won't ever fade away, associating the unbearable sweetness of some violin's high notes, and blue, and blue, and blue, and a glove falling down to the white ground.

Isak empties, his soul leaves its casing.

It's him.

Isak stares at the man beneath one million layers, stares at the single hair strand visible out of his beanie, stares at the lips mirroring Isak's in an _o_ shape. Doesn't know where to focus, so focus on nothing and everything at the same time, while their souls dance, floating over their heads, giggling at their misfortune.

They are locked in place, in a trance, intense as people still move around, passing between them like eclipses, in glimpses, without they even blink. For seconds, days, millennia, until decency has long ago begged Isak to go.

Isak doesn't intend, but his mind shoots, one hundred images stored, stocked, to undermine him in the wee hours of the night.

Even is a sight, has ever been at school, but now, the angles! His jaw, a plump Picasso, Even is a Monet in his bluest phase, eyes bluer than Isak has ever seen them. Even is all man, he's no girl. Has never really looked like one. Isak recalls though, how on the other hand, he has succumbed to him, been his girl for a night, having completely and absolutely lost it into that mouth.

Shivers, shivers, shivers.

Someone bumps into Even, forcing him to take a step back to keep his balance, and Isak feels the air revolving and howling. The emptiness heightening already because of one step away.

Stupid, stupid brain, that when drives Isak to look away, moves his eyes to Even's hands, seeking for the metal he knows will be there, warm beneath his gloves, around fingers that have turned Isak inside out once.

Even follows his eyes and Isak uses the loosening of that pull to escape. He runs away with just one glove, tripping over kids and being scolded by parents.

After that, it takes Isak a couple of weeks and a lot of stuff pushed back to the back of his mind to finally lure his soul back, to sew it into his body again.

When Isak sees him again it's the beginning of 1961 and he realizes time is no help, time just adds to the flame, time is what the devil uses to fill up the blanks.

Next time Isak sees him, they are sharing a room and Isak's brain is committing to memory the country ballad leaving Magnus' radio, echoing through the whole cabin and leaking to the Universe, some old lady singing  _I fall to pieces_  in a painful way. And Isak does, but there is no moon, it's pitch black, so whatever happens, it just doesn't count.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I could convey it with my writing because in my head Isak's reluctant dazzle with the TV is so cute.
> 
> Ps: I don't know why this verse turned so intense and dramatic (some would say cheesy)
> 
> Ps2: I don't know why I love to repeat words


	3. Chapter 3

**Magnus' Cabin, 1961**

 

_Playing on the kitchen's radio_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/6pyex9B1kBoRIuabBAc4m8>

 

"I could do that," says Isak cocky, his index finger lifted up for dramatic purpose.

"Pfffff," Magnus scoffs, with his arms wrapping a Vilde sat comfortably on his lap at the small kitchen table.

"Fuck you, I could," says Isak, temper has never really been his strong suit. He's nineteen years old now, with a twelve-years-old mood.

"Right."

And this is it. Again, Isak's temper. He gets ups, pushing the chair back in a single movement. He's already rolling his sleeves up, followed by Vilde's jumpy claps.

Isak positions himself in front of them, and suddenly his face is blank, Isak's expression is gone, leaving behind _the look_ , which he throws to Vilde.

"You ready?" says Isak in a forced deep voice, curling his lips like Elvis, earning a round of laughs from his limited audience composed by two.

Isak doesn't move, it's a statue with sharp green-eyed look and snarled lips. Waits steadily until the chorus raises, and then hips, hips, hips. Suddenly Isak is just hips, sliding at the speed of light, a dead focus in his eyes, he is no Isak anymore.

Isak goes for it, doesn't care he may be ridiculous, does the rubber legs, moves his hips to the music, on his tiptoes, moving his arms from one side and to another. He doesn't listen to the claps anymore, Isak is on fire, has made the kitchen his stage, feels the song running underneath his skin.

When the song hiccups and slows down, Isak halts his frantic movements all at once, with his hips to one side, he's frozen. But he isn't done, not yet, not when Isak has something to prove. Isak is ice waiting to become steam.

His brain is now directed to a single point in his body, his groin. He starts moving it, wiggling his hips in slow movements and then he is just thrusting it, as Magnus tries to cover Vilde's eyes.

The song raises again and Isak uses it to go crazy again, hips to the left and to the right, it's not coordinated, it's liberating, Isak may be laughing too. He gets on his tiptoes and starts rotating his arms. He is a windmill, he is a dork, has always been at school among his friends, as a way of showing off a confidence he has never really had.

The song finishes or is Isak finishing it? With a last deep roll of his hips, he raises his arms asking for applause. Waits for it breathing heavily with his curls wild and a grin in his sweaty face.

Isak looks at the door, nonchalantly, doesn't know exactly why his eyes have been pulled there, just turns his head to the door. He is looking back at the couple before his mind has time to process it, and when it does, when it registers the impossible vision, his heart stops.

_What? How?_

He jerks his head to the entrance, and his heart abandons him right there and then.

_He is here, he is here, he is here._

The devil in disguise.

Even under layers, with a suitcase and a smile that isn't about his lips curving, but about his eyes sparkling. He looks like an actual angel.

Isak wants to explode.

"Hey, man," says Magnus, going to him and shaking hands, while Isak holds an expression _in between_ , in between any two emotions, it's a face that has no sense.

He flickers, the first sign of life, as Magnus pulls their visitor towards him, making Even drop his bags on the floor and follow him clumsily, gazing nervously at his bags, at Isak, at all their surroundings.

"You know Even, right?" asks Magnus and Isak wants to turn into steam and disappear. "Another Nissen's survivor."

Isak is in shock, doesn't know what he has said or done, probably nothing, doesn't really recall the shaking handshake.

Isak is fucked.

 

.

 

_At some point, playing on the radio, and it's so unfair_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/4HVSaFbEwvptCAzLlOr2UZ>

 

Isak seems small, little on his chair. And it doesn't help, that Magnus has this stupid tiny table, that Even has to sit beside Isak, that he has to smell that good, that his scent has to feel so god damn familiar, triggering all the soft spots in Isak's soul.

"Wah wa wah, wah wa wah wa, wah, wa wah wa wa?" says Magnus.

It's incredible how Isak can completely and entirely dismiss the words of someone he is staring at. While his whole being is so conscious of every movement of someone he is utterly trying to ignore.

_When I'm lonesome, you are the one I think of._

Isak has to close his eyes for a second, shut them closed for a while. Isak is weak against his own brain, has always been his biggest enemy.

"Wah wa wah, wa," says Vilde.

Even shifts his leg under the table, one inch to the side, and Isak's shoulder does this stupid writhe in response, can feel him in every movement. Isak doesn't look at his direction, but sees through the corner of his eyes Even is now resting his hands over his knees. Then he isn't anymore, is using them to fold the edges of the towel. Isak can feel him.

Even says something and Isak startles, his voice is deep and his sentence short. Even has spoken and Isak wants to store that sound in a can to hear it whenever he needs. Isak can't stand it, having him this close, isn't prepared to handle all the stupidities his body put him through around him, doesn't like to feel that confuse and helpless, doesn't like being that out of control.

Then Even stands up, Isak refrains himself from doing the same, almost does, but he tells his body to behave. And for the first time, Isak checks him out, big green eyes widened like a terrified kid, scared he is going home, or maybe that he is staying, but mostly, scared it is showing in his face, how much he aches to follow him.

When Even leaves the room the world unmutes. Isak breathes, finally.

"What is up with you?" Magnus asks.

"Why is he here?" Isak asks too vigorously, too bothered, knows he is raising suspicions, but he's despaired, doesn't know what can happen if he keeps in the same room with him.

"What? You don't like him?" Magnus frowns.

"I thought it was supposed to be just us."

"I thought you would like not being the third wheel for a change."

When Even enters the room again and the world fades away, Isak halts in the middle of a phrase, is put on a state of semi idiocy again. When Magnus decides it's a good idea to throw him a carton of milk, Even is the priority in his mind.

Isak looks up in time to catch the liquid explosion happening over his head, the white bomb bursting out against the fridge. He just has time to close his eyes, and feels the milk spilling all over his face. When his big green eyes open again, he throws a shocked gaze to a dazed Even that lasts one second before Vilde is yelling at Magnus in reprimand.

"It's not my fault Isak didn't catch it!" Magnus yells. "Rá, man, you look like you have cum all over your face," laughs Magnus.

Isak wants to bury his crimson head in the ground and just come back when this weekend ends.

 

.

 

"Why can't I sleep in your room?" Isak whispers, in a tone that is too outraged for it.

"Hm, because you are not my wife? What is up with you and Even, man?"

"What?" Isak chokes.

"Why you don't like him?"

"I don't know him," says Isak weak.

"You are just sharing the room, Isak. You will be fine," Magnus pats Isak's back and ends the discussion.

 

.

 

The door slams behind them, and it's like a hammering on the brain. Isak wants to laugh out of despair, wants to understand how he has ended there, trapped with the only person he can't. Nonsense.

"You can have the bed," says Even, Isak nods looking down, doesn't know what to say back, so says nothing.

Isak moves around the room, enters the bathroom, only doing the things he can't not to do. And when he finally gets back to the room, he sees Even on the floor, over some folded blankets, with his back to him. He stares a little too much.

Isak turns the lamp off and lays down with his back to him as well, and without light, with no sound except the muffled songs coming out Magnus' bedroom, his brain leads him to dangerous places. Isak loses track of time, of his limbs, loses consciousness of his own being, can only focus on Even's movements and sounds, which are none to the regular spectator. For Isak, though, it is a symphony. Every time Even breathes slightly deeper, he can feel it as though it was on his neck, can feel it on the goosebumps popping all over his body.

 

_This song starts echoing through the cabin_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/5U2uhwJseYO7eH5nEwPb8z>

 

_"I fall to pieces"_

Some lady cries on the radio and Isak wants to tell Magnus to fuck the shut up, Isak is in no conditions to stand sweet melodies. Can't stand it with the long body he knows is now laying on the floor, so close.

_"You want me to act like we've never kissed"_

_Seriously?_

Isak freezes, has never heard this song, he can't believe this is happening, can't believe he has been put in this situation, laying awkwardly there having to hear someone singing about his life.

Isak wonders if Even is thinking the same, if Even is also having reminiscences of their lips together, of their mouths working miracles and their tongues being more than friendly. Isak knows he is awake, doesn't know why or how he knows it, just knows it.

Even shifts and he doesn't have his back to Isak anymore. Isak needs no light, no moon, no candle to be sure of that, he knows it by the ways Even's breath is more present. It's psychological maybe, but Isak can feel it on his face.

Isak rolls over too, doesn't intend to do this, does it and only then thinks.

The whole world now converges to whatever happens at that spot beside his bed. When there is movement there, Isak freezes like a deer caught in headlights, holds his breath. Even has shifted, closer. Isak has to close his eyes, even though there is no light. Has to close it anyway.

Isak knows he won't have a say on his own body, and it's confirmed by his leg sliding slightly to the right, and then his whole body following it. It's an inch, less than that, it's still too much.

Even moves again, it's silent, stealthy, it's overwhelming. To Isak's fragile mind, it's like fireworks in the darkest night.

Is he feeling this pull too? Isak can barely breathe, such is the power of this feeling, it's appealing.

 _Move._ Isak thinks and doesn't know what the fuck he is expecting to happen, just needs more.

And Even does, like obeying him.

Isak moves until he's on the edge of the bed, doesn't know what he is doing. But when he hears Even has moved too, he knows they're side by side, just distant on the height, it makes his poor heart swell and do funny things. Isak doesn't know what is this game, but can't avoid playing it, it's addictive.

Isak starts gliding a hand through the bed, caressing the sheets, like it is a lover, moving it down the edge gently, feeling the wood. It's just part of their game, it's flowing and Isak is only navigating with it. Isak feels with his fingers the texture of the wood, down, down, down, until it falters, and Isak has nothing to ground himself anymore, just a hollow space. And Isak's doubts blast then, has no clue what he is trying to do, but keeps his hands dangling awkwardly there anyway. He moves his shoulders forward to allow his hand to almost touch the floor, close to where he knows it's laying an angel disguised of man.

He knows Even knows he is this close. He feels shivers and shivers throughout all his body.

_What is this?_

Even darts his finger to touch Isak's, Isak who has to suppress a surprised gasp while he falls to pieces, falls down, down, down, deep in a hole. Isak has to breathe more, has to, otherwise, his overexcited heart won't be able to handle the pressure to which it has been subjected.

Isak keeps his finger there, bravely, against every conscious thought telling him not to, begging him to leave, to get out through the door and never look back. But Isak can't, is powerless against one inch of skin against skin. They share electricity, electrons and electrons flowing through their bodies, Isak doesn't know how to explain it. It's something passing from one body to another, in an invisible exchanging.

_What is this?_

Isak falls and falls, at some point falls asleep, floating over untouched sheets, grounded on Earth by the touch of their fingers. Falls while their fingers are dancing their own gentle dance, taking the reins and Isak's heartbeat. Their fingers are the only one moving, but it feels like the whole room is somersaulting.

Before sleep takes him, Isak realizes Even is smiling by the way his breath has changed, and this shifts everything inside Isak, this messes with his core, and settles something there that will just grow up, like weeds. Isak falls smiling, wondering if Even can tell it too.

Next time Isak sees Even, he is sleeping soundlessly and beautifully, has this mouth that drives Isak to bad and good places. It's morning and the light gives him an angelical appearance. Isak can't stop staring at their joined hands. He doesn't know when they ended up like this. Isak is in awe, he doesn't even care his shoulders and arm hurt like a bitch because in Even's fingers there is no ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are my fuel.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess it's better short than nothing?
> 
> Just a little dabble.

  **Magnus' Cabin, 1961**

 

_Playing on the kitchen's radio_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/4ZexY8LcZkPd89dYPxf8LH>

 

Isak's inners are twisting, his stomach whorls with the butterflies, which just flies and flies. The bed rotating on itself as Isak lays there prostrate, with his arms and legs outstretched like a cross, heavy, sinking down in the sheets. Isak tries to bring his spinning mind to cooperate, but there is no way to avert his eyes from the figures dancing on the ceiling. So Isak looks up, trying to read them, but finding no meaning.

The shapes mixing up with the bizarre mess in his head. The fresh memories dancing in there, hand in hand, then lips on lips, wait no, no, this doesn't seem quite right, it's just lips, and lips, and lips. Then eyes that had flickered and Isak pretending he was sleeping, pretending he had no feelings as Even had run his warm breath over the back of his hand, in a phantom touch that had no sense. Had Even smelled him?

_What was this? Jesus, what is this?_

When the Sun has long ago flooded the bedroom, Isak jumps out of bed with a huff. He knows it's the only way of forcing himself out of the numb inertia he has been wallowing after Even has left, after infinite heartbeats of overwhelming silence, as Isak stayed there, inert, like a bad actor.

Bravely, Isak drags himself to the laughs leaking from the kitchen. Isak hasn't decided yet how to behave, so decides by storming there all at once, like ripping a band-aid off.

"Isak!" yells Magnus, spinning Vilde and dancing, and it just adds to the confusion in his brain.

Too many lights, and sounds, twirling in a blurry picture, and blondes at the oven shining in white shirts.

And it's too late when Isak realizes it. Even turns around and suddenly there are two of him. They are both frowning, but Isak's vision is vanishing away and the songs are echoing, too distant, in a tunnel. And Isak realizes before going, he can't remember the last time he has eaten.

So he thinks,  _right, food._

Then,  _fuck_. And then blank.

When Isak sees Even again, when he slowly opens his green eyes he's all he can see, leaned over him. Isak blinks the numbness away as Even does this thing called smile. It makes his heart sing, Even has never smiled at him, Isak is flooded by an outbursting joy as his lips curve up in reflex. And for a moment, they share a secretive smile, it's pure, while Magnus and Vilde run around them, not even aware Isak has just awakened, acting like the world is ending. And it is, it's crumbling down in a tsunami of ocean blue.


	5. Chapter 5

**Magnus' Cabin, 1961**

 

_Playing somewhere, somehow, Isak has no clue_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/2cdzutoqFK6sfW6exi7oXh>

 

Isak can't forget the smile they've shared, doesn't feel like he'll ever do. It's impressed in his soul, showing in the way his face troubles and softens in dazed spams. Isak can't get rid of that sense of intimacy that has taken him at that moment, drowned in blue. 

It's trouble, it's what it is.

They haven't spoken to each other yet, but it's like they're the only ones doing the talking. Isak is having problems with his heart as they take turns gazing at each other. He can feel it heating his skin, Even's eyes running over him as he does nothing of special, as he eats or brings the juice glass to his lips. Isak has never been more self-conscious of such things, he has never been hotter. He knows all this burning is coloring his cheeks from inside out.

It's trouble, when Isak has his turn to take him in and Even offers himself willingly, knowing he is being looked from a distance. Isak knows it then, feels it in the way his heart pinches, it's trouble. It's what it is when Even bobs his head to the music, with something enlighting his face, and an outrageous smirk menacing to take his parted lips. Even knows he is being praised, they both know it and even though Isak can't bring himself to stop.

_What is this?_

It's bad, it's what Isak realizes when he catches himself trying to memorize the spots in Even's cheek and their path towards his neck. It's even worse when Even takes his turn and Isak can feel him on the tingles in the pit of this stomach. Even's stares are way bolder and Isak has no option but takes it bravely with his body glowing. It's too good, it's what this sensation is.

Even leaves the room for a reason that Isak never gets to hear and his feet just take him after his blonde waves, he can't even remember the excuse he has thrown to his friends. There is just this pull that urges to be attended.

When the pantry's door closes behind him, when his heart threats to leave him, he knows it's trouble all over again.

"Are you sure you have sugar?" says Even with his back at him, staring at shelves. "I can't..."

Even turns around.

"Oh," Even lets go and it has this adorable feature that Isak can't stand.

Isak can't. Isak breaks their deal and raises his eyes at him, stealing Even's turn to all but pant at him. It's in Isak's eyes now, in his lips that are shaking, how much he wishes to taste him again. 

And this leads to the moment they both realize it, when something shifts in the air and a blind resolution descends upon them.

They crash somewhere halfway, their mouths meeting first. Their lips sliding against each other as their mouths open, outragedly, in a need for tasting and savoring. Isak is mewling, he can't quite believe the taste of Even's inners, it is just as good as it gets, it's painfully satisfying. It's heaven, it's what is.

Trouble, trouble, trouble, is hammering in Isak's mind with every stroke of their tongues, with every one of them that Isak fails to prevent. He knows he should stop it, he knows it, he doesn't give a shit, though.

They kiss brushing their souls, running their arms all over each other's backs, like in a 50's movie. Isak feels Even's muscles moving under his fingers, he can't help clutching them. Troublesome.

"Have you found it?" a voice, distant, in another dimension breaks the spell.

Isak pops their mouths apart and wins over the whining that wants to outburst of him. Even doesn't. Isak wants to cry too, instead he forces that boy back with two hands on his cheeks. But he needs a moment to take that sight in, Even with closed eyes and long eyelashes, needs to commit to memory the way the spots on his face contrast with the pink of his flushed skin now. Isak wants to give in, because he still catches Even's lips making kissing movements with his lips and chasing him.

It's impossible, it's what it is.

Isak almost knocks Magnus out on his way in. Isak runs, dismissing Vilde talking to him, crossing the cabin and leaving.

Isak walks fast, and then it's running, it's running to the forest and when is distant enough, he let it go.

Isak screams at the top of his lungs and starts to laugh, uncontrollably, he is a lunatic. Laughs and smiles with his finger reaching for his bottom lip, which is still warm. Isak shuts his eyes and mouth closed, wants to keep the taste in. Even is still inside him.

Isak crumbles down and lays on the wet ground, but he is smiling. Out of despair, out of a feeling that he can't really name.

It's trouble.

 

.

 

When Isak comes back it's pretty dark already, he goes directly to the bedroom, it's where the pull is. Isak closes the door behind them with his foot, can't stop taking him in, can't break their chain. Even is sat on the edge of the bed, has his arms resting over his long legs, spread apart, invitingly. Even in white shirts and those jeans, looks like a fucking James Dean. This is bad.

Even has been waiting for him, as Isak knew he would be. He doesn't know why, but he is sure of it.

They look at each other, their lips talk at a distance, parting and responding, wetting and glittering. Isak floats towards him, hovers over him, his hands finding his scalp. Isak combs his fingers through Even's blonde hair, panting with him as Even closes his eyes in pleasure.

_What is this? God, what is this?_

Isak can't quite believe, can't quite get rid of it, doesn't has anything in him to stop it.

Even raises his absurd eyes at him, wrapping his arms around Isak's waist and bringing him in. Isak is a sheep, willing. Even presses his lips to Isak's torso, nibbling at his shirt, trying to eat him, to kiss, to smell, closing his eyes and he seems in awe trying to merge with Isak's stomach. Chills. When he raises his round blue eyes at Isak again, Isak is long bewitched.

_What is this? What is this?_

"What is this?" says Isak, his eyes over him, begging for an answer, begging for so much more.

Isak has no clue why Even's answer means that much. It feels like this is just how things are supposed to be, Isak trusting him.

"It's stronger than us," Even replies with the most hoarse of the voices, his chin resting on Isak's belly.

"This is what it is."

And Isak believes him, he shuts his eyes closed to let it sink in. 

_Stronger than us._

As to prove his point, Even slides his hands down, inviting Isak's thighs to step in. Isak lets his head fall back, he lets himself to be guided by him, to this feeling that is going to be the death of him. 

When Isak sees him again he is passing both legs around Even and sitting on his lap. When Isak sees him again they are wrapping each other with arms and lust. Isak's head is spinning with the overdoses of oxygen due to his overexcited breathing. Isak has no clue what they are doing. It's stronger than them. This is what it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think is going to happen? What would you like to happen?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for your support, it means the world.
> 
> Some talking happening in this chapter.

**Magnus' Cabin, 1961**

 

_Playing_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/4UOt0ObZ4Oqi7LSU1Gzzkq>

 

Isak is slipping, already has gotten no feelings in his limbs. Can't believe he is kissing Even on his lap, relying on him to keep him on Earth, keep him whole when all Even does shatters him into pieces. So he moans, and moans, can't help it, not when their mouths are into this sloppy dance, inciting and fighting. And Isak is the one surrendering, has never tasted anything quite as these lips. Hence, he whines and writhes, leans his whole torso back for Even to make his body his stage.

They ain't no boys. It's easy to pretend when Even's hands are keeping him insane, pulling him back to his mouth, demanding.

"Like this?" Even nibbles at Isak's lower lip before moving them together with his hips in waves of shiverings.

Isak answers with painful sobs that come from within. And when Even's fat lips brush over the skin of his neck, Isak sees stars, he's never been kissed this way, has to focus on keeping it inside, everything that is threatening to get out in a loud eruption. Rather, Isak cries ever so softly pressed against a rock. It's paradox.

"Is it alright?" Even tickles his skin with his breath.

Isak shuts him up with his mouth, he can't afford to talk or think, has no clue if he is ready for whatever it is that Even has in mind. It should make him scared, but then Even soothes his back and Isak is a sheep again.

"Even..." Isak cries out, doesn't know if he wants to ask him to slow down or go harder.

Even kisses the entirely of his neck lazily, almost until the point of combustion, and when their lips find each other again, there is no kiss. Isak blinks confused, meeting blue and panting. It's too intimate, to have him locked like this.

"You gotta teach me, okay?" Even mutters softly on their joined lips.

"What?" says Isak, fitting his gaze between Even's left and right eyes.

"How to be with a man."

_What?_

"What?!" says Isak, suddenly has his palms pressed against Even's chest.

Even's whole face widens, from his mouth to his eyes.

"I-I just don't know how it works,"

"And you think I know?!" Isak pushes him back gently, even if he is still very on his lap.

"I mean, people..."

_People. The epitome of the world._

Perhaps it's because of the sound of breaking glass inside Isak, but Even halts in the middle of the phrase. Isak can feel him piercing his skin, chasing his eyes, which are now directed to the ground.

"Isak..."

Isak feels for the very first time the only feeling Even hadn't managed to inflict on him. Shame. It burns his face, and the awareness of Even's hard-on pressed against him makes him feel suddenly sick. He gets out of him like peeling himself off a cactus.

Isak rebuilds himself with layers before saying:

"Come back to your wife."

 

.

 

Even finds him again, sitting alone in the pantry holding the sugar packet as it was a friend. And if Even notices the white crumbles by Isak's mouth, he doesn't comment on it.  
  
"I saw you found the sugar," says Even softly.  
  
Isak doesn't give him his eyes, feels like has already given him too much. But when Even sighs and sits by his side, his eyes flicker in response nevertheless.

It looks like ages before Even speaks again:

“People say I'll never achieve shit in my life, that I'm worthless, that I don't care about anything.”

Isak keeps his throughout examination of the floor but feels like his ears have twitched.

“It’s not true,” Even adds. "I'm going to be a pilot one day, you know, and prove all of them wrong. I don't know when, but I'll make it happen."

One more minute in silence and then Even continues, carefully, like choosing the words.

“People called me crazy, said I'm no good...when I didn't marry her.”

Isak jerks his head at him, has surprise imprinted on his face.

Even takes him in before saying:

“But this is true.”

Even rests his head on the wall, looking at Isak with these big eyes of him.

“What happened?” Isak narrows his eyes trying to see beneath the blue.

“I'll need your hand to explain it,” says Even extending a hand as Isak furrows.

“Use your words,” says Isak nonchalantly.

“I can’t."

“You can’t use words to explain it?” Isak gives him his most unimpressed gaze, but this for some reason just unleashes Even’s smile.

“No, it's impossible," says Even, hiding a mischievous smile by licking his lips.

Isak can't smile, he simply can't.

“Enlighten me, then,” Isak shouts, accepting Even’s hand as a way of fighting his rebel lips.

Even maneuvers Isak’s hand to his tilted neck, Isak has to hold his breathe, can't touch Even and expect everything to be chill.

“So?" says Isak harshly, as if he weren't dying inside.

“Can you feel my pulse? It has never been like this with her.”

Isak snorts and rolls his eyes all at same time.

“True,” says Even unaffectedly.

Isak focus on him again, a little too long, feeling the moment his resolve falters, the moment the feelings in his chest start consuming him, so he deflects.

“And my hand was strictly necessary for you to explain it?”

Even chuckles and Isak can feel him throbbing under his hand.

“Absolutely,” says Even, holding Isak’s hand in place.

But Isak doesn't comment on it.

“You know, there is this thing you were supposed to have learned in school...” says Isak.

Even smiles bigger, has his brows up.

“They are called _words_ , when you put them together they...”

“My heart beats faster around you,” Even blurts out, cutting Isak off. "Would this be a good of an explanation for you?"

Isak's eyes turn into two big balls, his hand slides powerless down Even's neck.

“I never stopped thinking about you," Even's voice feels rougher. "Is this a good use of words?”

Isak doesn't answer, his heart talks for him, loudly.

"That day in the market, everything came back as strong as always. And knowing how it felt to kiss you...gosh, how I wanted to hold you, right there, amongst all those good people."

“Don't be ridiculous,” Isak mutters, turning to stare at his shoes.

He pretends Even's words carry no weight, pretends to ignore his hand now settled comfortably on Even’s thigh, pretends he isn't affected by Even caressing it gently.

“People said I gave boys blow jobs at the school’s bathroom,” says Isak and surprises even himself.

Even's soft touches hiccup.

“It's a lie,” Isak adds, throwing a tentative glance at him.

Even restores the caressing, silently.

“People said I was giving my teachers a good time whenever I got good grades.

It's a lie.

People said I wanted to be a girl.

It's a lie.

I hate people.”

Even squeezes his hand just in the right spot, Isak uses the distraction to breathe.

“Okay, tell me something that is not a lie then,” says Even softly.

Isak turns crimson before speaking.

“They said I liked you."

Even shifts closer, but Isak refuses to look at him, he's suddenly very interested in the way his socks disappear into his shoes.

“Isak?” Even calls him.

No answer.

“I'm sorry if I made assumptions about you. It wasn't fair. But you need to know that to me you were always perfect."

Isak's heart sores.

"Stop saying stuff like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm a girl."

Even doesn't reply and the silence feels heavy upon them.

“Isak," he finally says. "Have you done this before?"

Isak doesn't need to even ask what _this_ means, there is just one answer.

“Just with you.”

Isak takes a glance at him in time to see him raising his brows.

“Just girls then?”

“Just you.”

“I mean, you have kissed girls at least?”

“I don't do that."

“What? Kissing girls?”

“Being with people.”

Isak feels defeated, ashamed of this part of him.

 _I'm a weirdo_ , he wants to say.

“Isak, the prom, was it your first kiss?” Even seems shocked, but there is no judgment in there.

Isak says nothing.

"What about after that?"

Nothing.

“Fuck, baby,” says Even.

He seems not to notice it, but Isak's mind spirals with _baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby._

Isak gives him a lost look, has never felt this raw. He catches Even making a bad job of stifling a smile.

“What?” Isak grimaces confused.

“Nothing,” but he keeps smiling.

“What?!” Isak shouts grudgingly, but he is smiling too, of course he is.

“I don't know!” Even chuckles.

“Even!” Isak is chuckling.

“I don't know how to explain it.”

“You really need to work on your words,” says Isak.

And when Even laughs, he laughs too, it's contagious.

“I don't know,” says Even shaking his head defensively. “I liked thinking I have all of your kisses. It's stupid, I know.”

Isak smiles shyly at him, feels like his cheeks have turned into two red balls. But he keeps there, trapped in blue, until their smiles melt together and the air thickens around them.

"You have sugar all over your face," says Even reaching to touch Isak's corner of mouth.

He runs his thumb through Isak's cheeks, making waves of skin. Isak feels stupid, and it's probably showing in his face.

When Even leans in to press his lips against Isak's corner of lips, Isak reveals on it. Then Even sucks gently there and it's felt in Isak's stomach. 

Isak is the one turning his head to touch their lips, and then it's the end. It is supposed to be a peck, but it turns into three haste strokes of their tongues, nothing is even enough.

“What are we doing, Even?” Isak conveys all the feelings struggling within him. "What if people find out, what if..."

Even pecks him.

“I don't know. But I don't want to stop feeling this way," says Even bringing a hand to cup Isak's hand clinged to his neck. "Do you?"

“I don't,” Isak whispers with his heavy lashes and wet lips, his face showing just how gone he is.

"We can learn together, Isak."

 

.

 

Then, Even is all Isak sees, through all the night, which he spends in his embrace, as Even repeats again and again between kisses  _I'll threat you well, okay?_ But Isak is not concerned. And Even is sweet, excessively, as though the knowledge of Isak's inexperience has awakened an overprotective feeling that was dormant. Even's touches aren't eager anymore, but every touch still sets Isak on fire.

Even though, this is not the reason why Isak is in pain, it's this feeling struggling within him. The next night is going to be their last and it troubles Isak's stomach. Isak wants him to make all his doubts go away. So he aims to ask him  _How? How can I move on after having woken up to your smile?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments and kudos, they are the biggest motivation.
> 
> Thoughts? Suggestions?  
> What did you think about Even's dream of being a pilot? And about Isak being bullied at school? What do you think is going to happen now?


	7. Chapter 7

**Magnus' Cabin, 1961**

 

_Playing_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/5eh0402zJwaohvhArtKhQ4>

 

Isak is the king of the world, has woken up with this long man fitting into his arms, to a feeling he can't name, but that pinches his heart time to time. Even won't stop smiling, neither does Isak because right here, at this moment, every single orbit in the Universe seems aligned. So when Even says:

"Can we stay in here forever?"

Isak whispers:

"We can."

And beautiful is the smile that tingles Isak's heart again, the one that makes him decide: _I gotta keep you. Gosh, I gotta keep you._

However, forever slips through each kiss, and suddenly Magnus is punching their door, startling Isak out of Even's warmth, out of their bed.

"Wake up!" Magnus muffled voice comes demanding across the door.

Isak looks at Even now on his elbows on the bed, seeks into his eyes for guidance, but only sees the reflex of his troubles framed by golden eyelashes. It awakens on him a tenderness he has never had.

"We're sleeping," Isak spills harshly, but his glance at Even is ever so soft, one carried of sweet memories.

Even smiles shyly like one thanking by the softness directed to him, it sores Isak's stomach.

_Everything for you._

Even is turning him into mush.

"Man, it's way past ten, I was hoping we could do something fun?" says Magnus, then turns the handle. "Fuck, why did you lock the door?"

Even's fat lips part in a silent  _o_ and Isak doesn't think.

"Bears."

Silence.

Even stares at him, has his brows in the skies and eyes that are glimmering.

"Bears?" says Magnus hesitantly.

Even is visibly having a hard time trying to keep his amusement silent. And Isak feels fire growing inside him, has always had a short temper after all. So he wants to yell _you have any idea what I'm risking by being here with you_? But this time the fire gets entangled up with this foreign feeling running in his veins and dissipates away, leaving him numb.

"Haven't you heard about those hikers found in Bergen?" says Even loudly, never breaking their infinite gaze.

Isak is surprised by how steady his voice sounds beneath that smile.

"No," says Magnus.

"Yeah, sad story," he says smiling.

"Fuck."

Even mouths _come here_ and this gets Isak out of his stupor. He shakes his head frantically with wide eyes, but Even's smile doesn't even flicker.

"Mags, I was just here chatting with Isak about the old school times, and we got carried away. Give me fifteen minutes to wash up and I'm joining you, okay?"

Even sinks down onto the bed, spreading his long limbs in there.

"I thought maybe you could play guitar and we could sing along?" Magnus yells.

"Sounds cool, Mags."

"Okay, but don't take too long. I'm booooored," and with a loud bang on the door that makes Isak flicker his steps are far away.

Even tilts his head to have a better look at Isak and the moment their eyes lock the easy smile is there again, is like Isak's sight is the source of every goodness in the world. It's too much, to be looked this way, it makes him giddy and his heart, it pinches again.

Isak is there in two large steps, jumping onto him without any finesse, extracting an amused blast of air from him.

"We need to get out," Isak whispers as Even fastens him there with arms and legs. "Not even Magnus can be this clueless."

"We will," he says. "Just say it again?"

It's so unpretentious, so blue, it pours out of Isak a fond smirk that is not Isak at all.

So Isak says what he has been repeating again and again.

"You're the only one that has ever kissed me," Isak mutters half-lidded, chin up.

"Fucking lucky bastard," says Even cracking into the biggest of the smiles.

Just that this time Isak doesn't refrain himself and spills it:

"Wouldn't you do _this_ if I had kissed other people?"

He has to look down, avert his eyes from the answer he doesn't know he is prepared to hear.

"I would do this if you had kissed all Norway," says Even softly.

Isak jerks his head at him with wide green eyes. And when Even lifts himself up to reach his lips, Isak kisses him back the only way he knows, drowning in feelings and surrendering.

"Why are you even doing this?" asks Isak between his hands.

Even takes him in before answering:

"Because when I'm with you it's like there won't be bad days ever again."

Even roams Isak's colored face, brings a hand to caress Isak's curls and whispers like to himself:

"We still have tonight."

Isak hurts inside.

He doesn't want just tonight. He wants the forever he has promised Even.

Even kisses him and for the first time Isak kisses him in automatic mode, his lips pucker and respond, but Isak's head is spinning.

 

.

 

Isak is the one left behind in the room after a harsh peck that God, has felt so manly.

_How can something so wrong feel so right?_

Isak doesn't care anymore about the whys, though, as long as he feels like this, as long as he feels like this.

Isak tucks his shirt into his pants and prepares to leave when the world becomes louder and crazy.

 

_This is the song playing as things develop as a movie_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/2HyPrPSANTIPkR6CfiytwY>

 

First is Magnus stomping through the door, disheveled, then Even following livid behind, speechless, trying to say the world with his eyes.

Isak's blood turns into ice and his spirit falters him.

_He discovered it._

This is the end of life as he knows it. And in the end, is Isak standing between Even and Magnus without even thinking.

"Magnus," says Isak. "Please..."

"It's my mom," says Magnus and lets go a dry sob. "Again."

Isak has the decency to feel bad about the relief that drains a loud sigh out of him. He turns at Even seeking for answers, but then Magnus demands his attention, grabbing him by his collars.

"Anders came to warn us she is throwing rocks at the parish and causing a scene. This is strike three, Isak, they're going to institutionalize her. I need to go there. Even will give me a ride to the city on his motorbike. Can you help Vilde to gather all the things? She has the car, she can drop you off at your house. Please, my friend?"

"Sure, man," Isak replies out of his body.

Next thing he knows he is following Magnus and Even through the corridor.

Even walks backward, tries to tell with his eyes things Isak can't understand, Isak furrows and furrows, and mouths things he is sure Even never got to understand too. Even shrugs and shakes his head wildly, lifts his arms in resignation, has his mouth perpetually opened. It's the fastest slow-motion walking of history.

They reach the front door, where Vilde gives Magnus a hug, and Isak wants to grab Even and never let go. He does no such a thing, he is stuck. Even and he share glances full of desperation that leads to nothing but hearts racing.

"Drive safely, Even," says Vilde stealing Even's eyes that turn unwillingly at her. "Please, don't let him rush you. It's snowing."

"Yes, ma'am."

He throws a last glance at Isak.

"Bye. Isak," he says unsurely.

"Bye," Isak mouths, has no voice in him.

To see Even going through this door, it rips something off within him.

_We were supposed to have tonight._

 

_._

 

Pale is the Isak that packs Even's things, there is no color in his once flushed cheeks. And he does it slowly, as savoring the grief he has been put in. Isak smells and folds with reverence. Isak is confused and lost, but he does all right, he helps Vilde, he finishes his own bag, and Even's. He does all as expected, except for this little thing. He keeps one of Even's sweaters with him, he puts it on underneath his jacket.

It's his only concession.

The car ride is silent and uneventful, apart from Isak sneaking a hand beneath his coat to touch Even's piece of clothing, to feel him closer. Isak runs a hand through the fabric and has no clue if this is all he will ever have again from that man.

Isak worships the texture and slides a hand to the pocket, furrowing when feeling a bulge in there. He gropes it and brings it out. When in the light, his heart does this thing again, it pinches in a good and hurtful way, always good, always painful.

Isak takes a glance at Vilde focused on the road and back to the thing in his lap. But now, with light in his eyes, Isak knows exactly how to name this feeling inside.

It's love. Isak is falling in love. Hard. One pinch of the heart at a time.

Isak has found hope in the pocket of that clothing.

 

.

 

When Isak sees Even again, it has passed two lingering days, and he is waiting for him at the entrance of the airport. His heart is pounding in his chest with uncertainties.

But it just takes a look at the talisman he has found in Even's pocket and all his doubts vanish away.

It's a glove.

That once was his and that in a fateful encounter he has left behind on that Christmas market.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any thoughts on why they are at the airport? Magnus' mother? The glove?
> 
> Any expectations?
> 
> Lov u all for your kind comments <3


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The airport became a big part of this chapter, I went researching Oslo's airports, hoping to find one with water around it, maybe some bay.
> 
> What I found out, though...just take a look at Oslo's Fornebu Airport, Norway's main airport until 1998:
> 
> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Fornebu_aerial_photo.jpeg

_**Fornebu International Airport, 1961** _

 

_Playing in Isak's head_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/3QRLv6aLANNjl6FRS2fDfE>

 

He gets a sight of him at a distance, but his heart hammers as though he was licking into his mouth. It's exhilarating, this pounding, pounding inside his body. Isak watches him swaggering. Even is a beautiful mess of hair fighting against the wind, sucking on a cigarette locked between his puffy lips while putting a jacket on.

 _He looks just fine_ , Isak thinks, one side of his lips curving up.

And the doubts that threaten to take him in just last until Even spots him. The grin that cracks Even's face then, it cracks Isak's heart too. Even discards the barely initiated cigarette and in the middle of a crowd, this blonde runs just towards him.

"The airport?" Isak shouts, grinning, can't contain this happiness inside. "You work at the airport?"

"We gotta be close to our dream," he beams, stepping in.

_Gosh, you are so damn beautiful._

It's impossible to stifle the light has taken their eyes as they exchange bashful glances, unsure of how to behave. They go for a half hug that lingers too much, and not enough, then parting and panting, and playing with luck by staying too close. It's difficult to care when you feel this optimistic.

Isak peeks around, licking his smile before saying:

"You kept my glove."

It's not a question, but he still waits for the answer.

"We gotta be close to our dream," Even mutters, looks at him with eyes light like the sky.

Honestly, Isak wants to die. He returns a smile that is more about the glow in his eyes than the shape of his lips.

"I haven't even washed it," says Even grimacing theatrically.

Isak throws laughs to the sky. When has he become this easy, this happy?

Even shakes his head, but his face has nothing but joy.

"Fuck, you are so beautiful today," Even roams his face in awe. "I need to kiss you, I'm dying inside with wanting. It physically hurts."

Isak feels the pain too, has missed even this, has missed him immensely, has missed him more in the last two days than in the previous two years.

"I've missed you," says Isak low.

He sees the breathing leaving Even, his seeking for air becoming louder.

Their hairs are revolving against the wind as they keep looking at each other with stars in their eyes, sharing the same pain, the one that hurts good.

_If I kiss you, will it feel better, will it hurt more?_

"Can you feel me yet, in your mouth?" says Even.

_Definitely hurt more._

And Isak can. And Isak tries, to sustain this glance, but he can't, his lids feel heavy and shut closed.

"You keep your eyes closed like this and I'm taking you in the middle of these people."

When Isak cracks his eyes open, he is flushed, breathless, scandalized, and so, so gone.

"Your skin red like this tastes so good, Isak."

Sweet, sweet torture.

"Can you feel my lips in your neck?" Even continues.

Isak writhes, flickers his eyes to force them open. 

"That spot that makes you tilt it to the side? Can you feel me tracing it with my fingers until your collarbone, following it with my lips?"

Isak can feel the phantom touch of Even's long fingers tingling his skin. Isak leaves sounds in the form of air.

"Isak, you are a delicious person."

"Even..." he begs, knows can't stand this much, can feel himself growing in his pants already.

"Can you feel me, Isak?"

"I can," he breathes.

And Isak can, feels his lips tingling and his pants tightening in anticipation, following Even's lean back to an empty hangar where he teaches him how to forget to breathe.

Isak relieves himself kissing this man that smiles satisfied with every single kiss, every single one of them. So Isak experiments, pecks him slowly, just welcoming Even's lips home, pulling back to take him in. Even won't open his eyes, but the smile, it is stuck in this face.

Isak wants to tell him, wants to be brave, wants to share his fears, to get to know him. Isak at this moment wants to explode so Even can see every particle that composes him.

 _I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love,_ hitting him with each stroke of their mouths.

Isak leans in, breathes Even's skin, feels the scent has made him whole.

"Can we talk?" says Isak, turning to the door and letting his cheek at the mercy of Even's lips attack. "Somewhere else?"

"Say this is not over," Even claims Isak's body with two hands on his lower back, glues their foreheads together. Breathes and breathes.

"It's not over," Isak whispers.

_How could it be?_

Even sighs in relief.

"I know the perfect place."

It's night and windy when Even takes him to the edge of the airport bay. It's starry and beautiful, the breeze feels salty in their mouths, makes their kisses in the way there exotic and exhilarating. It's a beautiful sight ahead, sitting side by side with their backs to the airport, against a short wall. In front of them just dark water and dark horizons, and the city lights as a reminder they are not alone in the world.

Even talks things about gearboxes, turboprops, and thrust. Isak falls in love with his voice. Even rambles about the object of his adoration, the unique Fokker F27 Friendship that  _is nothing like the Douglas DC3 that is about war. These beauties are about people, they are the future of the skies._  Isak studies the contours of his nose, falls in love with it too.Even uses their joined hands to draw things in the air, tells Isak all about his job as an aircraft mechanical assistant,  _it's about sucking the knowledge. Everything, Isak, everything. It's about saving too, there is no cheap way to become a pilot._  Isak stares at their hands. It feels so nice. 

Even teaches him to close his eyes when the world starts vibrating, tells him to use his senses, as though Isak isn't overwhelmed by all of them. Even teaches him to scream when the aircraft is threatening to burst their eardrums. It's liberating, it makes Isak's heart to pound in his throat and laugh.

It makes him feel free.

"Open your eyes", Even yells.

Isak sees the giant plane crossing above their heads only with his peripheral vision, cause Even is the real sight, looking at the sky as a marveled boy.

"It's beautiful," whispers Even.

"You beautiful," Isak blurts out, is pretty sure has heart eyes at this point.

Even is beautiful, gorgeous all taken aback and speechless for the first time in a night. Beautiful in every sense of the word, even with his lips getting this purple.

"You are freezing with this jacket, come here," says Isak at the softest his vocal chords can reach.

And it shouldn't be this easy, but having Even's back against his chest, comfortably resting his head on his collarbones, it feels like God's work. Isak throws his coat over them, kisses these beautiful lips until they are rosy again, then presses their cheeks together, watching plane after plane taking off for minutes and minutes straight, until the first of them dare to break their peaceful heaven.

"What is that, Isak?"

"Huh?"

"What is that you want to talk about?"

"Everything."

Even chuckles softly.

"This seems a lot."

"I don't like not knowing things," says Isak.

"This seems frustrating."

"Have you heard of Magnus' mom?" Isak asks low.

Even nods silently.

"It's unfair," is all he says.

Isak tilts his head to the side, is breathing his skin when he asks: 

"You think we are sick too? That our brains are screwing us up?" 

_Is it my brain making your scent this damn appealing?_

"I don't know."

"Are we homosexuals, Even?" blurts out Isak, noticing Even stilling in his arms. "Is this what we are?"

Even turns his head to look at Isak's lost expression.

"Does it matter?"

Isak furrows.

"If you were given two options right now. Doc says, take the blue pill and you won't like who you aren't supposed to, you will honor family, God, you won't ever feel this way again. Or take the red pill and feel this exact same way forever. What would you do?"

"I would choose the blue pill any day," says Isak and regrets it immediately, Even's face falls, turning to look ahead, far from his eyes.

"How can anyone choose not to be healed?" he amends.

"I would choose you any day," he says simply.

"You are not being logical, Even. What if you could have this with a nice girl, something you can fit in the world, that..."

"Fuck the world," Even mutters, but even this is soft.

Even is still very in his lap, but it seems now there is a whole world between them.

Isak panics, hasn't wished for this, for Even to be this hurt. For reasons he can't understand, he can't stand this.

"Some nights I was so lonely," whispers Isak on Even's ears, holding him close when feeling him squirming. He needs him here for this. "You popped in my mind, you and every little thing about you, your smile, the way our mouths worked that night.

You scare me, Even, don't you realize this? I don't know what I'm doing, but I always wished for time to speed up and know I want to be stuck in a single minute with you."

Even turns his face again. Isak knows is seeing him bare.

Isak kisses him first, this time the kisses are slow but demanding. Even brings a hand back to cup Isak's cheek, is trying to keep Isak whole, when it's too late, Isak is falling apart, knows Even feels the same.

"Why couldn't you be a girl?" Isak mutters between their mouths, makes Even to swallow it, knows isn't being fair.

Even opens his big blue eyes at him and whispers.

"I'm sorry, I was never right."

It stabs Isak's heart.

"You are perfect," says Isak.

"You are making no sense," says Even and is pecked again and again.

"I know."

"What do you want, Isak?" Even pants. "I would give you everything, I would give you the world."

"I may burn in hell, but I want to touch you."

"You can touch everything."

"I don't know how," mutters Isak and lowers his eyes, feels his stomach about to burst and things shifting downtown.

Even takes his hand and Isak gasps, opens his eyes finding fire staring at him. Even slides Isak's hand underneath his shirt.

"Do whatever you want," says Even, so raw.

Isak clutchs Even's stomach as he is his silver lining. He feels the absurd softness of this skin and the hairs there, Isak wants to follow their way inside Even's pants, so he does, following the path is taking his breath.

Even moans. 

And the flames come, they take him whole when Isak wraps Even when Even is more man. Isak forgets to breathe, Even does it for both of them.

Isak commits to memory every sensation, the texture, the warmth, the softness and the hardness. Isak sizes him, feels the skin, feels Even's life pulsating in his palms, keeps him there, when Even is about to slip, squirming, arching his back. Isak uses it to thrust his hips, and the thought Even can feel him poking his back makes him want to surrender to this feeling and explode, makes him stroke.

Even moans loudly.

It awakens the fires of hell. It's not Isak anymore.

It's desire, desire, desire when Even's mouth drops in a silent  _Isak._ It's pulsating inside his pants when Isak buries his face in Even's crock of neck, there is nothing can stop this feeling, this lust has taken him now.

"Isak," Even is an utter mess, suddenly still in his agony. "If you don't stop it now..."

"What, Even?"

"I'll make a mess."

"It's okay," says Isak and now is thrusting against Even's bun, he needs the friction. "Is it?"

Even just nods and pants, pants and nods.

"Can I see it?"

Even halts, falters in his breathing, doesn't ask a thing before rolling up the coat and unzipping his pants, freeing Isak's hand and the thing makes Isak licks his lips.

Isak doesn't know what he was expecting but certainly wasn't _this_ , to find it this beautiful. Dirty, certainly, shameful, surely, not this, this peace inside. Every little piece of Even is beautiful. Isak unwraps it just to take it in, dismissing Even's groans.

"You are fucking beautiful," Isak whispers in Even's ear, then kisses the flushed skin of his neck.

"Isak."  

Isak, Isak, Isak turns into an overwhelming symphony. Isak is a maestro, driving him to every sound. It's marvelous to have this newly discovered power, so Isak experiments with the fire, flirts with desire, wants to wreck Even apart. He slows down to Even's frantic sounds turning into beautiful and low moans, and softs are the sounds that make him groan in Even's ear in return. Isak is a bear, feels like an animal.

"What do _you_  want, Even?"

Even moans. He is panting and thrusting his hips on Isaks hand, but he still manages to say:

"Two red pills, please."

Isak is a mess himself, feels like his balls are about to explode, but at this he bursts out laughing, hurting with every shake of their bodies. He leans his forehead on Even's shoulder and hears his weak laughs in response.

"You are an idiot."

Isak is in love, he knows it now. 

When Isak restarts the strokes, it's gentle and caring, it's about giving Even the world. He says again and again in his ear:

"I'm taking care of you."

Even turns his head and looks at Isak in his lowest, at Isak panting and thrusting his hips painfully. But Even, Even smiles, even then.

 _I'm in love with you,_ Isak almost utter the worlds, kisses him instead, slow as the movements on Even, exhilarating and good.

They exchange sounds in each other throats as they come. Isak untouched, just because of Even's subtle and not that subtle reactions. They breathe in each other's mouths until the absurd sound of the airplanes can be heard again.

"Jesus, baby. You drained me empty," says Even with his eyes closed.

Isak sees it then, the utter mess over Even's stomach, his coat, his hand. And Isak laughs, doesn't know why or how, bursts out laughing like a lunatic. Pecks Even again and again, until Even has a soft wrinkle between his eyes, that he pecks too.

"Are you okay?"

"I have never done this before," says Isak and bursts out laughing again. 

"I can say this is pretty newfor me too," he says smiling, he seems wrecked.

"Not like this."

"What then?"

"Relieving myself." 

"What?" scoffs Even.

"It's a sin," he says and blinks green eyes at Even.

Even looks inside his eyes, looking for something Isak doesn't know what.

"Are you telling me you have never come before?"

"Of course, while sleeping, on dreams, just not doing that."

"By that, you mean jerking off?"

Isak nods.

"Fuck."

Even snuggles in, resting his sweaty cheek against Isak's collarbone. Isak feels just fine. Fine, fine, fine. Has this man covering him and it's inebriating, his head spinning with the most innocent things:

_I made love with him!_

It's scaring but mostly amazing, Isak pecks Even's wet forehead. It feels salty in his lips.

"This explains the blue pill choice," mutters Even.

Isak laughs because Even is a dork, ridiculous, it reminds him of his father. Isak snorts mentally with this thought.

"Even?" Isak whispers, as Even keeps there, defeated over Isak's body.

Even hums, barely back from his high.

"I'm glad it was you, and not some girl," he runs his lips over Even's nose. "I'm saying I'm glad I made love with you."

Even raises his head, looks at him with wide blue eyes.

"Made love?"

Isak blushes.

"Isn't this what is called?"

Even looks at him silently, a little too much for Isak's sake.

"Yes," he smiles fondly. "This is exactly what it's called, baby."

Even pecks him so sweetly then, muttering things like  _you are so sweet_ into the kiss.

"What now, Even?"

"Now we are going to be together," says Even.

And the smile that takes Isak's face, he wasn't expecting.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Even beams in response.

_I'm in love with you._

"Why are you looking at me this way?" asks Even.

"Nothing," he keeps beaming.

 

.

 

It's not nothing. It's not nothing when they finally need to leave, when Even takes him home in his motorbike. It's actually everything in the world and more, when Even drops him off one block before Isak's house, when they end in a dark fence, protected by high plants and by the lovers' luck. Exchanging kisses and promises. 

"I'm yours and you are mine," says Even, but looks at Isak as asking for confirmation.

"You are mine and I'm yours," he gives him that smile that just changes his eyes.

Even looks at him, opens his mouth as about to speak. But Isak attacks his mouth instead.

They kiss until dawn, until the world starts awakening around them and they have no choice but part.

Isak plans then, when he sees him again, he is going to tell him all about his love, he doesn't care about the world, or hell. Will tell him he loves him so much he would rather nail this life than the next one.

When Isak sees him again at a coffee shop, Isak wants to yell to the world to hear, instead, he hands him a small note:

_E,_

_I'm in love with you._

_Forever yours, I_

And he watches Even taking way too much time to read such a small note. Even won't raise his eyes, so Isak's heart starts pounding until a huge grin takes Even's eyes, his face, his whole being before saying:

"Same."

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A mess with feelings (and one beer, okay, two, but who is counting?), this is what this is about.

_**Halfway through May, 1961** _

 

_Playing in Isak's core_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/25tjnZ2DAYAtdzInr52G3n>

 

Isak has always seen him through this fog of feelings that has taken his sight since minute one, back then at school. Since the first extra beat of his heart, connected to that dull laugh running at a distance, one he had no clue, would change his fate. A new state of mind, a love that was love prior any sight, and about that, how? How do you deal with such a thing? 

You don't, it's the honest answer. You just take it.

So, this is how it went, Isak falling in love with Even's presence before even staring at blue. 

When it came, the blue, when the sky itself descended upon him, it made him prisoner. It was morning, light and a beautiful day. Or, again, maybe just the fog, that feeling in his veins, making his memories louder and his brain melt away. Isak never really left that schoolyard, that day.

Even would make things like licking his lips, and Isak would pray for God to make it stop. He didn't, though, He made it stronger, it was Isak's punishment for reneging his nature, for following that figure and failing to stop the extra beats his heart should never have endured.

Even took beats and beats, nights when Isak wished for none of them, for them to halt, no more pain. And again, even that pain, was camouflaged by clouds of blue, some shades of that pain Isak craved for every day. There was Even in them.

And Even was something Isak never learned how to push away. So Isak pushed away what he could control, Isak vanished away, his own self, he almost disappeared. Isak was a ghost, trapped in his body with all the sort of feelings.

Isak gave the fog names, called it sin, devil, temptation. Isak called upon God, begged Him to let that, whatever name it had, to go away.

It never really worked.

And then, there is now. There is Even.

Shrouded in light, smiling with his whole body, enlighting the fog, that is still present. Now, Even licks his lips and still steal heartbeats, but also steal smiles that burst from within Isak. And Isak is lost, has always been, but now Isak is in the middle of the hurricane, has run out of names to describe these things.

Even now does too many things, he makes it hard to breathe. Now Even calls him ' _dream'_ and Isak is left behind, trying to catch up with beats and beats, that are now flowing and flowing. Isak smiles, and his eyes smile, and his body enlightens, but inside, Isak is still trying to name it, whatever it is, that enters through his mouth and nostrils and floods his lungs, this fog that makes him see him blurred. This thing that makes it difficult to leave Even's side.

Even has told him he is in love with him, and has asked Isak to say it _again and again_. Isak says, again and again, commits to memory every single one of them. Will never forget any smile he has given to Even, the man calls him _'dream'_. Nonsense. Nonsense.

Isak understood Romeo, understood Juliet. Would do the same, wouldn't even blink, doesn't think is extreme. No, because is Even.

But sometimes, Isak feels is being left behind, and tries to catch up, but Even is the light, has his own speed. Has sounds and laughs, and scents. Isak is being consumed by five senses and a feeling he hasn't learned to identify yet.

Isak thinks about it, Isak has always been an analyst. So he spends parts of his nights thinking. Thinks of Even and tries to understand these things running inside, the ones that make him smile.

When no answer came, he starts everything all over again, he wakes up, he does things he can't not do, just to see him again. Even kisses him whenever he can, dragging him to empty hangars, to empty rooms. Even calls him ' _dream'_ in the middle of kisses, even smiles through it, and this is when the feeling gets stronger, makes itself more present, makes Isak forget how to kiss Even for a moment in that way he knows makes him purr.

Isak follows him, lets Even show him all the secrets of his life, of his heart, lets Even ramble all night long about things that matter to him, the ones make him stronger. Isak doesn't quite say too much, pays more attention to him than to his own self. Isak knows him now, can predict every one of Even's breaths. Knows when Even will throw another ' _dream'_ milliseconds before it happens.

Even teaches him how to hold onto someone on a motorcycle, to trust his soul, to trust his life. Even takes him to all places, has made himself Isak's guide through a new life Isak was too busy wallowing on his bed to know. They swim at lakes, they wrestle in the water, they try to drown each other but end up kissing fervently, making sounds and losing breaths, trying to merge, because of this feeling has no defined boundaries.

Even makes funny voices one day, and keeps doing it, again and again, because he says, "You smile like that, I make it rain."

And Isak, he laughs. Isak laughs, laughs, laughs, laughs. Isak laughs. Isak smiles and laughs, Isak learns one day how his body can hurt, literally, literally hurt with the shaking of his chuckles.

Isak is in love with his best friend.

Even calls him ' _dream'_ through the phone one day, and invites Isak to his house. He introduces Isak to his parents, " _my friend",_ and Isak smiles and is polite. But he fucking dies inside.

Even takes two whole seconds to notice, five until they are alone, "I would tell them the minute you let me do that, bunny. You know that, right?"

Isak isn't ready yet. So they let it like this, ' _dear dear friend_ ' on the light, ' _dream_ ' in the heat of their arms.

But it's okay. Even still takes him to parks and kisses him when starts getting cold and every decent person has headed home, and the only ones left are indeed them, seeking for lips like trying to breathe.

Even takes him to concerts, brushes their fingers in the middle of thousands of people, Isak gasps and almost runs away. Even is turning blunter every passing day, it makes Isak scared.

So Isak lets him drag them to a photobooth, it's a way of hiding away. And in the end, Even is the one person who thinks he is the moon, who looks at him with these eyes and mutters:

"Come on, dream, just one picture that I can keep with me."

Isak says nothing, just smiles, and goes, wherever he wants. Because it's Even.

And inside of the tiny cabin, that has never really been supposed to hold two big guys like this, Isak has a sight of the name, of this thing, running in his veins. By looking at Even struggling with the buttons, cursing and grimacing, Isak has a glimpse of what it is then. And the mere idea that hasn't even settled down yet makes him sob, a sob that reaches years back. Reaches Even's first laugh.

Even halts, drops his mouth and has now a wrinkle between his blue eyes that are overwhelming under the artificial light. Isak feels it in the heartbeat that slips, that it's coming again, and when sobs come in form of tears Even's eyes widen and as fast as the blink of an eye, there are hands leading his wet face to eyes that just makes him realize this feeling was escaping him, the meaning of all of it.

"What happened?" Even asks, seems in agony.

"I'm happy," Isak's voice fight the tears, and the trembling in his body. "Inside."

Isak clutches his chest with a hand, like trying to hold it in one piece, trying to show Even it's ripping in two.

"What..." Even is trying to swallow his soul through his eyes.

"I have never felt this way before."

And when the shoot comes, when the light engulfs them, it imprints in the frail piece of paper something would stay forever the most precious of Isak's treasures, the one he would always, always keep with him, until it was rotten through and through.

A photo of them, kissing through tears, wrapped by feelings, clutching each other's faces with a painful needy that was nothing but pure craving for the other's soul. Isak and Even in love out of control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to:
> 
> http://skater110599.tumblr.com/ that shared the link below and started this chapter <3
> 
> And
> 
> https://evakvsp.tumblr.com/ An inspiration and a writer waiting to be unleashed <3
> 
> "Two men kissing in a photobooth, 1953": https://monstermonstre.tumblr.com/post/177894585225/thegheyteen-cute
> 
> What you expect to happen? What did you think about this mess?  
> Even calling Isak dream? Turn on/turn off?
> 
> Ps: 04:30, forgive me for any mistakes


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

**Airport bay, May 1961**

 

 _Sometimes is silence that lives inside._ **  
**

 

“What if I were the night?” Isak goes on, sitting on their wall, has his man standing tucked between his legs.

Even's eyes are lost in the black vastness ahead. Isak is lost in Even's nape, running silent kisses down his vertebrae.

“I would be the moon,” Even says, very matter-of-fact.

Isak can just glimpse the corner of a smile he knows is there, one that pulls another one from himself.

“What if...” Isak lingers, zigzags his nose through the goosebumps in Even’s skin, takes his scent in. “I were the moon?”

Intoxicating, is what this flooding his nostrils is. Isak gets notes of soap and grease, of something sweeter that is just him. 

“I would be the Earth,” Even mutters, tilting his head along with Isak seeking for the recess of his neck.

So willing, makes Isak bites a smile.

“The one you orbit," Even adds smugly.

Isak erupts into laughter, jerking his head at the stars. Has learned how to do even that, to feel the easiness in his neck, his muscles all relaxed as laughter bubbles out his chest.

“Pretentious,” Isak ends up saying, adjusting the beanie beneath his hood on his forehead.

Even chuckles lazily.

“You're still the one people write odes to,” he says dropping his cheek onto Isak's collarbone all of sudden.

Isak is caught by surprise with both hands half-lifted. And suddenly he needs a moment, needs to understand how it's possible to find every single thing someone does this endeavoring.

"Fine," Isak's voice lowers. He carefully brushes Even's hair tickling him, tucking it under his chin before declaring, "I allow it."

Isak concludes by smacking his smile on Even's cheek, with no delicacy. Still, Even purrs satisfied, snuggling up more against him.

Isak's heart shifts to accommodate these sounds.

"How nice of you," Even mumbles, slipping his hands into the pockets of Isak's coat, making it wrap them both, pressing them more against each other.

Isak feels him turning heavier by the moment.

"Yeah, you know me," Isak wraps his arms around his chest, serves him as a bed.

He's not ready for them to part just yet.

"I know you..." Even whispers between dreams, and already fading away he breathes, "My Isak."

It sores and aches, drives Isak to tighten his embrace.  _My love_ , he thinks, because this is exactly what Even is. Even is pure, Isak has discovered. And so, so immensely precious to him right now, which is the thing troubles him most about this they are doing. If Even gets hurt...

Isak pushes the thought aside, he can't.

 _No one can hurt you now,_  Isak kisses the first thing that is Even and is within reach. 

They should leave. It has been hours since the last airplane took off. Isak sighs. His baby works early in the morning, but Isak has started night shifts at a bakeshop, all they have now are these hours they steal from their beds. **  
****  
** And Isak can’t leave just yet.

Instead, Isak stretches his neck to study Even's sleepy features, wishing he had his hands free so he could add texture to it, any relief. He doesn't, so he takes it all, his body flooding with a bursting tenderness as Even solely does things as parting his lips. It makes the corners of his mouth curl up.

Isak gets closer and closer to numbness as he watches. Hypnotized by the repetitive sounds of the tide breaking against the shore, when Even's breathing starts competing with it, developing to soft snores.

It pinches again. The heart thing.

"Hey..." Isak rocks him ever so gently, honey in his voice. "Are you sleeping on your feet now, huh?"

Even hums in appreciation.

"One minute," he says in his hoarse pillow voice.

" _One_ minute?" Isak chuckles trying not to shake him too much, then kisses what he can again.

Even's lips stretch. And he may not know it yet, but Isak at this point would join wars for these golden lashes fluttering against his chest.

"You're going to be so restless tomorrow, baby."

Isak calls him it now, calls him so many more names when no one is paying attention. It's an experiment they are running, ranking nicknames according to each other's response.

"Hanging on to your memory will keep me awake."

Isak snorts softly.

"It's funny because it makes me sleep," says Isak brushing Even's hair falling over his closed eyes.

It's so long now, almost touching his shoulders, only a reminder of how much they are dismissing all the other aspects of their lives.

Even doesn't move.

Isak sighs but doesn't suggest them to leave, only cups Even's ear to protect it from the wind, now picking up around them. Then leans in to whisper, "What if I were the Earth?"

Even huffs as if amused by some sort of private joke and decides to shift then. Isak loses his grip and watches his fingers brushing Even's waist as he turns around, before Even's eyes demand attention.

Even has hardly looked at him, yet Isak needs to readjust.

Even's eyes are still light, although not absurdly bright in this dull night. They're not screaming  _'I'm fucking blue!'_ like during the day, now they are calm, like the bay. They are deep in meaning, still blue, but now conveying _'thank you'_.

_What are you thanking for, marvelous boy? I'm just mimicking your gentleness._

Even drops his arms over Isak's shoulders and fits his nose in the space between Isak's eyes, connecting them like a puzzle. He does this sometimes. **  
**

"You are," he speaks, tugging gently on Isak's hood. "The whole world, dream."

Isak shuts his eyes to the intensity of Even's words, tries to pull him closer by his belt loops when there is no more room for that.

"This can't be your answer," Isak replies, but it's breathless and low, everything in him says _'gone'_.

"And why not?!" Even's voice cracks as he leans back.

He's met with Isak blinking fondly at him, he halts, as if he wasn't expecting such softness. Even seals his lips fighting against a smile and tilts his head to the side. Isak can't deal with the sleepiness in these eyes. It must be protected.

Isak leans in and Even's eyes follow his every single movement. Does this as Isak's hand run up his neck, brushing a thumb ever so softly over his Adam's apple. As Isak connects brow against nose until their eyes seem funny to look at.

These beautiful blue eyes roll up, watching, as Isak reaches up to play with his hair, using their foreheads as leverage and messing it up with both hands. Isak wants to guarantee there won't be a trace of the previous quiff. Even lets him have it - he always does - as if he knows Isak is only trying to reveal him, disheveling him by layers until all is left is Even's pure beauty, the Even is just for him. The one he saw in Magnus' cabin.

Isak concludes his work by putting Even's hood up over the mess he has made.

"Stick to the rules..." Isak prays, smiling like a fool.

Even huffs lazily.

"Rules, rules..." Even mutters. "Why are you so fond of rules, baby? Rules won't let me say the facts."

"Which facts?" Isak asks, tickling inside, knows is a trap. A delicious one.

"Hmm..." Even hums, their noses slow dancing in a serious case of romance. "Facts like I don't think I can fall harder for you, Isak...but then it comes..."

"What?" Isak speaks and lets his lower lip hanging down.

"Next day."

A smirk raises on Isak's face, grows until Isak is barking. Apparently, this is Isak now, this content creature.

Even stares in wonder like each and every one of Isak's smiles is a conquer. Then strokes Isak's jaw in a sheer movement that lets Isak craving for more, leaning into the already ceased touch foolishly.

Even gives him a smile that softens his eyes.

"Gosh," Even cups Isak's face with the base of his hands as if Isak was a wet painting. "What a beauty."

Isak rubs his cheek against these hands shamelessly, pretending he isn't seeking from under his lashes for Even's reaction on his so unsubtle needs. Even catches his eyes, amazed, using his thumb to brush Isak's lips, running it along Isak's skin as if trying to slather the pink of this mouth through all of it.

In anticipation his stomach knots as Even merely licks his lips. Isak closes his eyes in advance and then Even is kissing him slowly, slowly making his toes curl. Slow in the way it pains him as Isak opens up beautifully for him, trying to retribute the unhurried kisses, sliding and gliding their lips together in a way that has him thinking  _I'm so lucky to have this._

It's a first.

It gives him shivers, heat under his cheeks, bringing him to hug Even's neck, to kiss him with abandon. They kiss and kiss. They kiss until time bend upon them, transporting them to times and times. Times they can kiss unworried, boldly, with air getting rare as if underwater.

Isak knows they may not endure, doomed to burn too fast. Despite all of that - this being a beginning or a last - Isak realizes Even's name is the one he is always going to call for, no one's else. Isak won't fall in love again, not like this, the imminent explosion of a star, as if infinite was only a part of who they are.

So, borrowing one from forever, he prays, "Even."

"I love you," Even whispers back and makes it sound pornographic. "I love you, Isak."

It's the first time he has said it with words. And the second.

Isak pulls back, smiles as one falling in love at first sight.

"And I love you back," he shrugs, his face flushed from all the kissing, his heart again adding to it.

There are smiles and smiles, none of which can describe these lips, this time. Even's pure delight at the first time they have ever said  _‘I love you’_ , and which ends with Isak stating:

"I'm hard."

Even laughs like the Sun and pecks him. But then when Even is doing nothing about it, Isak groans impatiently.

Even chuckles more, but still manages to give him the softest of the tones, "Come here, baby bunny."

"Baby bunny..." Isak blasts through a mouthful of air, rolling his eyes. “This is so lame, stop-"

Isak has to hold his breath inside as Even pulls at his belt buckle. He watches Even working with both hands, huffing at the effort and nuzzling at Isak's stubble as he manages to unbuckle him. Isak gasps, clutching Even's shoulders in vain, knows no touch will prevent him from struggling with what he's about to gain. 

Even doesn't hurry to unbutton him, although not as a way of prolonging the frenzy, more like one does with his own pants. Isak doesn't miss the intimacy of the act, how his body reacts, moving along with Even unzipping him, Even pulling his pants and briefs down just enough. Isak nods in agreement eagerly, biting at his lips and pushing his hips forward, presenting.

This makes Even chuckle.

"Isak," he says just that.

Isak doesn't mind for soon Even takes a handful of him, studying his face fanatically. The welcoming pressure makes Isak let go these  _aaaaaaaahs_  that Even imitates, nodding at him and adjusting his ministrations according to the satisfaction escaping through these gapped teeth. 

Isak rolls his eyes back into his head, losing to the pleasure.

"Look at me, Isak" Even begs, grips his chin so he can direct Isak's sight to him. "Isak, look at me." **  
**

So Isak does, blinking the fog away and drowning into blue, not without leaking these soft whines through pouty lips as trying to show Even his objection to having been brought back from his channel of relief.

"Yeah?" Even bobs his head, strokes particularly good.

Isak nods, makes their noses bump, releasing indistinguishable and shaken words like he's riding a street of peebles. He's so close to shattering his soul into liquid. So damn close that he doesn't know what has got to him when he runs his tongue clumsily along Even's lips and nibbles. Hard. Not that hard that will give him the bad kind of pain, just enough so Even will struggle with the good amount of suffering, with their moisture. A reminder of them.

Even groans and turns a bit sloppy, that is when absent Isak notices Even is stroking them both.

Isak sympathizes with Even's cries leaving like coming from his core, feels the pain as if it's his own. So he slips his left hand - the good one for strokes - where Even craves most.

It comes too late, for Even is coming. Or just in time to paint Isak's ornamental hand in white. Isak strokes him through it at least.  
  
"Fuck, I'm coming," says Even and states the obvious, through a crescendo of moans that takes Isak with him.

Isak comes, inebriated by the way Even's orgasmic bliss ends with a long, wailful cry that dilapidates his soul. He comes, with the world turning into a long high-pitched noise and blue. And it occurs to Isak then, there is God in them.  
  
Even comes from his high first, reaches for Isak's inert lips, tries to extract life from them, when Isak is in no place to give. He still shakes with every new shoot in Even's hand, silenced by a mouth that is taking all the things Isak can't give.  
  
Then it ends, in peace. Mixing the sweat of their foreheads and their ragged breathing, the smile in their lips.

And as always it comes, in waves; the shame, giving himself so willing to a man. It makes Isak confuse, though, it’s not a  _man_ , it’s the one person calls him ' _baby'_ , the only one asks if he's sleeping, eating, while caressing his cheek. Sometimes he even thinks ' _why is this so wrong, should I rather be alone?'._

These thoughts put Isak into a state that takes three of Even's smiles to get him back from.

Soon enough the shame is gone and it's just them again, walking back to the airport as slow as they possibly can. Hand in hand - something has taken Even weeks to talk Isak into - unafraid, as if the world were theirs. Even talks little nothings as Isak repasses all three words has him glancing at Even's frame now, smiling at the wrong places and humming delayed.

Even laughs at some point, bumping their shoulders playfully, “What?”

Isak slips his arm into the crook of Even's arm and rests his head against him. Even barely moves, as if Isak is a little animal he has been trying to lure and that is finally showing up. 

"Baby?" Isak calls him.

Even hums, knows is him Isak is calling for.

"What if there were things about me," Isak stops, licks his lips. "That you couldn't love?"

"I would say there are no such things," says Even softly.

Isak sighs, "I'm serious, Even."

Even shifts to face him, contouring Isak's waist with his hands.

"Hey..." he says sliding their noses in a quick brush.

Isak takes his chance, steals a glance, lowering his eyes immediately when Even's eyes are too big.

"You know me now until this point," Isak starts, struggling with the words. "Right here, right now I'm perfect. But the things you're going to discover from now on-"

"I'll love them all."

"You're not listening, bunny," Isak says patiently, landing his hands ever so gently over Even's chest, leaning in, making it his cocoon. "Some things...it's okay if you won't."

Even cradles Isak's face over his hoodie, makes their eyes to meet, Isak's lip split.

"Isak, I love you whole," Even pierces him with his eyes. "What you despise, I will love it double."

Isak can't believe this man, can't believe this man. His lids fall shut as he tries not to tear up, seeking for Even's mouth unconsciously. They meet in a quick kiss, but take their time ungluing the skin of their lips slowly.

Reassurance is the name of this kiss, Isak has names for a lot of them.

"Okay?" Even arches his brows.

"Kay," Isak mouths and nods, feels like this is the only right answer now.

They peck once more and hug, crossing arms on each other's back. They always return to that, home.

Isak is wallowing on it when Even yawns. He tries to hide it up by burying his face in Isak's hoodie, which makes Isak chuckle involuntarily. They should really get back, not wish to stay in here forever, standing up in the cold. Isak has run out of excuses for them to stay, so he says:

"What if I were the Earth?"

Even melts into laughter.

"I would be Isak," says Even seductively, or maybe it's just Isak that would always think this.

Isak tries to stifle the smile unfolding on his face.

Of course Even would twist the game, twist the rules, Isak's guts. This is so Even, and it makes Isak full of pride to know now what Even is.

"Poor you," Isak gives up, smiling wide.

"Poor me," Even agrees, nodding eagerly over Isak's shoulders.

Isak shoves him gently, and when Even forces him onto his chest and chuckles in his ear, well, it sounds like bells.

Isak is in love, in love until his bones. With a man, a man who is dismantling him whole.

"What if I were Isak then?" Isak makes himself smaller to fit onto Even's collarbone, rolling his eyes up tentatively until finding the eyes he was looking for.

"I would be forever," says Even holding him by his waist and looking down at Isak clinging onto him.

Even says this word a lot now.  

"What does this even mean?" Isak asks, straightening up and leveling their eyes.

"You were the one saying I should say the first thing in my head."

Isak's face split into a smile. Isak is forgetting how smiles aren't something you can take for granted. Isak is forgetting things and things, is forgetting how he used to live. Prior him.

"What if I were forever then?" Isak mutters.

"You are," Even whispers obscenely, roaming Isak's face.

Isak wants to explode.

"Even..." Isak scrunches his face with a groan.  

Even laughs and laughs. Christmas in May.

Isak buries his face on him, warming his cold nose in the crook of Even's neck absentmindedly, smiling smugly when Even squirms but doesn't push him back.

Fuck, Isak would give nine lives to sleep one more night in these arms, shrouded by this scent is stuck in all his clothes anyhow. Isak rubs his nose against this skin. It feels so safe, in here, protected by him.

“Let's get you to your bed,” Even whispers, soothing his forearm, which is everything but soothing.

From Even's shoulder, Isak spots a hangar at a distance. This is it, the place divides their worlds, where their bodies part. As always, Isak expects for all of it, their ritual, Even grabbing his both hands and pulling his sight with them, kissing each one individually while Isak nearly mouths with him the so known words:

"My darling boy."

This nineteen-year-old Isak has been getting spoiled, being this darling to someone has saved his life from a mere existence. Makes him vulnerable, wanting to gift him his bare soul.

Even lets go of Isak as they resume their walking. The cold wind hitting them as a bitter reminder of the loss of their warmth. Not knowing exactly what to do with their hands, they shove them into their pockets, kicking small rocks for nothing while peeking at each other.

"My mother asked you over dinner this weekend," says Even after a while.

Isak nods in agreement.

"What do you say?" Even amends, a little too distressed for someone has had Isak at his house almost every Sunday.

"Yeah," Isak nods. "It's chill."

Isak catches Even's pouty smile, he does that when he is pleased, Isak has discovered. Isak is making his brain Even's encyclopedia.

"Baby?" Even calls him, laughter evident in his voice. "Don't bring my mother gifts every time. Stop it, okay?"

Isak throws him a glance but says nothing, already plans to bring Even's mom something. Isak gives Even's mom flowers, and wines, and breads, gives her smiles and politeness, gives her his very best. Naive Isak wants through cinnamon bun buy her blessing to love his son.

"She likes you," says Even as if peeking straight into his mind. "She asks me all the time about  _'that wonderful young man'_."

"She likes me because she doesn't know."

"Maybe she just likes you."

"Maybe," Isak hardly says words.

"I don't give a fuck actually, Isak," Even throws his arms up in surrender.

Isak creases his forehead at him, telling him he needs more than this.

"I don't care what people have to say," Even's voice melts into a softer tone halfway through it. "I adore you. I can't conceive a time I won't..."

People say ' _I love you'_ , Even says  _'I adore you'_ , lets Isak thinking how he ended up having something like this in his life.  

"Forever," Even adds smirking.

_Forever._

Sometimes the things you crave to hear are also the ones troubling you most.

“What if I were crazy?” Isak says before knowing what is coming out of him. **  
****  
** Even's eyes widen, the lines of his jaw harden. It makes Isak blush uncontrollably, his stomach to twirl.  **  
****  
** “How’s that?” says Even studying the words.  **  
****  
** “I’ve gotten a crazy mother, Even,” Isak screws up his face sadly.  **  
****  
** Even does this thing, fifteen emotions crossing his face as he steps back. It's just one step backward, yet Isak's heart races in rebellion.

"This is how I got close to Mags," Isak fills the silence, stepping forward, chasing him unconsciously. "Our mothers were at the same facility-"  
**  
** “What about you?” Even closes his eyes for a moment, like he doesn't really want to know the answer.

“I-I don't know," Isak stutters. "This thing could get me.”

“What about you right now?”  
**  
** “I don’t know," Isak protests louder, doesn't like the way he is being cornered so he frowns. "Right now I’m perfect.”

Isak can't afford to take Even's gaze right now, so he does what he shouldn't - not this close to real world - and hugs Even's neck.

"I needed to tell it though," Isak mutters, feels himself healing already.

Even doesn't take it, though, pushes him back again by his wrists.

"You," says Even. "You stay perfect."

Isak feels betrayed, dazed, realizing he is the one shaking.

"Will you leave me otherwise?" Isak hadn't intended for it to sound this wrecked, bitter maybe, not this raw.

The idea itself, it burns inside his veins, pain. He can't. Not being alone again, he wouldn't know how to even start.

"You'll be the one leaving me," says Even.

It freezes the air like a prophecy.

Isak's lips twitch in a sad smile, he barely whispers, "Don't say things like that."

Even's eyes soften, he blinks at him ever so fondly.

"I would marry you today, green eyes."

Isak's brows trouble, his breathing becomes nuts, leaving him through erratic bursts quite like hiccups.

"Isak," Even calls, dismisses Isak struggles, or exactly because of this, he continues, scratching the back of his head. "I do make a decent money, and you started working. I mean, it wouldn't be anything fancy. What I'm trying to say...we could find a place."

At the  _'You and me'_ Isak's eyes shut painfully closed, so these words tickling his being won't cut him like the softest of the swords. It doesn't work.

"I want to be there to cover you in the middle of the night when you kick all your blankets. For my peace of mind, because you won't wake up, Isak. And you even realize you do that? I have to be there, to guard your sleep, the temperature of your cheeks, or just as an excuse to watch you, which is just something I do because somehow you get even more beautiful that vulnerable. I want to be there for every awakening, for you to associate morning with the color of my eyes, what is stupid I know. I want to roll on bed with you until we have the same scent, the same as our bed. And to be late for work because you're there. My Isak, on my bed, that would also be yours."

"Stop it..." Isak blurts out.

Even doesn't respond, Isak doesn't open his eyes. What a setup.

"People would find out, would beat us up," Isak's voice fails as he fights to put his demons into words, "I-I..."

He says  _'I'_ when all his thoughts are consumed by  _'you'_. 

"It's my dream," Even brushes it off as if it was nothing.

Isak keeps his eyes closed until he feels the pain that is emanating from the other brain. He cracks his eyes open to Even's closed ones.

Isak looks around hastily before stepping in and pecking him. It's unexpected, but he does it again. And again, and again, keeps going with it, it's a need inside. Pecking Even with the air revolving around them. Isak tucks at Even's hair, which is just this long because of Isak. Even runs his hands over Isak's stubble, which is just there because of him.

At some point, Even's frown turns upside down, he giggles under Isak's attack. It warms their surroundings.

"I would do anything for you, Even," says Isak breathlessly, brushing Even's big lips against his, clutching at Even's hair as an addict trying to separate from his drug.

"But I won't do that."

It may be the most hurtful words to ever cross this corpse he habits. It has to be, because it hurts, a lot. And it hurts more when Isak sees Even's inexpressive face, which now Isak can read like an open book.

"So lie," Even's voice breaks in these two syllables.

Isak chews his lips, which are trembling, as his face contorts in any way will keep the stupid, stupid tears away.

And a stupid thought crosses Isak's mind then. He's so ugly when he cries.

"Maybe..." Isak clears his throat, coughs twice, harshly.

Isak wants to hide, but Even doesn't miss a thing, staring blankly at him with parted lips, no sound.

"Who knows," says Isak and makes a ridiculous act of shrugging. "Maybe one day we could find something outside Oslo. Maybe with time..."

Even drinks from his words with fierce concentration. Has closed his mouth at some point.

Isak's voice gets lower and lower until it disappears, even if Isak needs these lies as much as him. Maybe more.

"Fuck," Even chuckles unhappily, his face showing a mysterious pain. "You're such a bad liar."

Isak's face fall.

Even takes a deep breath, combing both hands through his hair and pulling his hood down.

"Come here," Even shouts.

Isak jerks his chin up as if expecting to see him with open arms. Instead, he furrows at the sight of Even stepping away without looking back. Isak rushes to follow these long legs turning the corner around one of the hangars.

Isak has started to lick his lips when the ground disappears and his back is being thrown harshly against the wall. Before the first reaction of his body, he is being kissed, with intent. Isak whimpers as a reply, and clutches everything he can reach, kissing back as a crazy nut.

It's always more wreckable when they know they shouldn't. In absolute.

But it's Even's mouth right there. It's...difficult.

"We will think of something," Even pecks Isak's mouth as one cherishing their favorite ice cream flavor, careful not to waste a drop of it.

Even is such a good liar.

He pushes himself away from Isak, throwing a nervous glance around and raising his hands as if for protection. Isak tries to breathe, his green eyes never leaving him.

Even gives him his back finally, has time to two steps before Isak moves, turning him around and pressing him against the container, making everything to shake, taking the breath of Even's body away, then swallowing the remaining. Isak is delirious, with Even's scent and the realization they can't! They definitely shouldn't be tasting each other tongues, not this close to civilization. But Even is so pliant, so full of little things make Isak crazy.

Even has his mouth wide opened, it's just not possible not to take him.

"Jesus fuck, Isak," Even breathes. "I never cease wanting you."

Isak parts their mouths and takes Even in, leaned against the wall, melting against it, shorter than him somehow.

"We should head back," says Isak resting his forehead on Even's shoulder, doesn't like being taller.

"Too bad we can't do that," says Even cradling the top of Isak's head.

"Why not?" Isak smirks.

"I've slashed all my tires."

Isak gives Even another laughter that is just because of him. Even can keep his own personal collection as far as he is concerned.

"I love you," they whisper at the exact same moment, the sound of their mixed voices creating something unique.

This is one of the times the world conspires, the story surrenders, the plot gives up. When the cliche turns a coincidence. Some things come out through clicks, which is what happens as Even is bubbling laughter, astonishingly beautiful, even this tired. It's when it hits Isak, puts him in a new state of mind, one that goes like this:

The whole world is upside down, they are straight.

 _We're right, everybody else is_  wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are my fuel <3
> 
> What do you want to see happening next?


	11. Foundation - End of part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, long time no see.  
> My only excuse is, this was a chapter that took me a lot of effort to write.  
> I hope you like it.  
> Have an amazing Sunday evening folks <3
> 
> Your comments were my biggest inspiration. 
> 
> Dedicated to evakvsp, always a light entity in this fandom.

**_Their_ tent, June 1st, 1961**

 

_Filling the background through their battery radio_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/3SdTKo2uVsxFblQjpScoHy>

 

"Isak?" Even calls him from his spot on Isak’s thighs.

Isak pretends not to hear, focused on reading, pretends he isn't seeing out of the corner of his eyes Even chasing him under the cover of his book, pretends there is no twitch in the corner of his lips.

It has been a good ten minutes. It has to be Even's silence record. Or as silent as one making a drumbeat of a pencil and humming along with the song can be.

"Isaaak," says Even and pops underneath the book, demanding, and now isn't quite possible to ignore these loud blue eyes anymore.

Isak purses his lips in a wry smile, holds the book with one hand so the other is free to mess with Even's hair. Even rolls his eyes up to watch still, knows Isak likes him most this way, blonde waves cascading down his face. Pure and soft like a baby chick hatching from an egg. Isak's heart swells with affection.

"Hi, baby," says Isak.

"Hi."

Isak marvels at Even's resonating deep voice, reaching out to take a generous handful of Even's face, watching the boy who won't stop fidgeting around quieting down finally. Even, made of sound and movement, parts his puffy lips ever so quietly under Isak's exploration, he has finally got what he was looking for, Isak's undivided attention.

It makes Isak giddy to know Even crave for things that just Isak can give.

So he says _'c’mere'_ with the language of his eyes and claps the book closed with a loud thud.

“You didn't need to stop reading.”

Now Isak has to bark, “You’re such a dick.”

Even doesn't seem to mind, adjusting along with Isak slipping under the covers, wearing a tiny little satisfied smirk.

As their eyes level, Isak reaches for these crooked lips in a loving peck, their welcoming. Butterflies rebel in Isak's belly and as if to incite them, Isak welcomes him over and over again, stamping kisses to these godless lips.

Then they sigh, both, that kind of long satisfied sigh it's just possible at the end of a day, when they have this, their peace, in  _their_ tent that they have chosen together. Something is Isak's and Even's, all at same, a thing is used much more than it should because no friends do that much camping.

 _Their tent_ , Isak thinks with affection, with their battery radio and their little lamp, the thing gets him homesick of something is nearly a ceiling. The one he folds sorrowfully every other Sunday.

Isak is wondering if for Even is the same, whether he also feels this bursting tenderness about this fabric when Even reaches up to scratch his thin stubble. Isak shuts his eyes close, helping him with the movements in the contrary direction.

"Have you heard the news about United Airlines?" says Even.

"Uh-uh."

"They bought Capital Airlines today. They're now the biggest airline in the world, baby."

"Uh-huh." Isak's vocabulary is reduced to purred onomatopoeias.

"U-S," Even murmurs each letter slowly, caressing Isak absentmindedly, "Sometimes I think about getting lost in the world."

Isak's heart leaps, he probably makes a face as well because Even's eyes dart to him.

"Hey," says Even casting a squinting glance at Isak, as though the mere thought of it is inconceivable, "Am I going anywhere without my bunny?"

Even does this a lot, asks rather than giving, he says  _'if I tell you, you'll know it, if you tell me, you'll have known it all the way."_

Isak thinks of the heart-shattering smile Even gives him whenever they get to wake up to each other's eyes, then shakes his head.

"I won't ever let you out of my sight, Isak," Even swears softly.

Isak lets his lids fall shut, feels he is about to be kissed, which just turns a fulfilled prophecy when Even gets to see him waiting with his chin up. Even kisses him as if praising him for the right answer, scrapping his cheek against Isak's jaw afterward.

_I should shave._

"I like it," Even breaks into his thoughts.

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh." Even traces with a finger the edges of it, which doesn't cover Isak's cheek. "It's so soft."

"Should I keep it?" Isak narrows his eyes, makes it obvious how much he cares for his opinion. He chuckles shortly. "I have a feeling my boss wouldn't be thrilled."

Even smirks fondly, so fondly.

"You’re beautiful in any form, Isak. But you walking to me with your gold beard and your shining green eyes makes me think of greek beauty."

Isak snorts, but blushes, “Now you're just messing with me.”

"It fucks with me."

Even's smile melts as the back of his hand studies the texture of this beard, as if lost in reminiscences of earlier sights.

"This is good," says Even, becoming pensive. "This is so good, Isak.”

Isak's heart flutters to the ups-and-downs of this Adam's apple. Sometimes Isak can't catch whatever it is Even is saying, sometimes is on Even, sometimes it's just Isak lost in Even's little idiosyncrasies.

"You and me," Even's voice gets conspiratorial, his eyes narrow in wonder. "It's good. Isn't it?"

Isak screws up his face and shrugs, "I've had it better."

Even lights up, smiling open-mouthed, "You little shit."

Isak chuckles looking upwards, clutching his stomach, feeling the pounds of his blood running through his veins. It's life, there is life in them.

Isak is awake.

"It could always be like this," Even tries.

This catches Isak in the middle of an expression, he sighs frustratedly. Not with Even, though, never him. How can he be angry at his same craving? Isak is pissed with the world, wants to punch and kick, but there is no target.

"You say that like I don't want it too," says Isak studying the seams of their tent, his jaw hardening under Even's touch.

"And...you do?"

The doubts shaking this sentence makes Isak's heart stumble, he looks at him for what is next.

"I want it bad," Isak speaks, doesn't put emphasis or develops about it, needs it to be this raw, so maybe Even can glimpse the truth somehow.

Even rolls on his back, crossing one arm behind his head to stare blankly upwards, blinking and thinking, then speaking, "This probably makes it worse."

Isak gives him time. Time is something Isak can give.

Even is a dreamer, and for Isak is left the reasoning, the one has to keep them safe from themselves. Isak doesn't take this duty carelessly, self-defense has always been his biggest trait. 

After some consideration and a deep breath, Even states that, "As long as I have you..."

Isak wants to thank him for no reason, or maybe for the reasoning, perhaps for Isak being the one he needs. Isak wants to tell him he has had him since forever, wants to say things that rhyme with it, ends up saying the closest thing to this he knows:

"I love you."

And it's the key for a smile that feels like scoring.

Isak earns Even's eyes again, descending upon him as two swimming pools, adorned by this one lock of hair curling onto his forehead. It feels unfair, that Isak gets to love what is so easy to love, almost makes him wish Even weren't this beautiful, that he made it harder so he could show him worship beyond beauty. Perhaps it would mean more because honestly, it feels like cheating.

"How was your day, baby?" says the angel, asking for truce by brushing their naked feet escaping from the duvet against each other.

A warm shiver runs up from Isak's toes to his stomach in a riot of butterflies.

"Good..." says Isak licking his lips to disguise the smile coming out.

"Yeah?" Even's face splits into a generous smile, adds extra beauty to a face doesn't lack it.

This makes Isak's grin turn wild, which in return makes Even's grin turn into sound and light.

It escalates, which is just something happens when Isak and Even hit this level of happiness, both of them, at the same time.

They share the same bashful joy glowing in their faces, beautifying their skins, smiling too much for too little. The top of Even's foot still heating Isak's sole, fitting as two shells, tickling more than just this surface. It has Isak thinking how no one talks about what if feels like rubbing feet with the person you're in love with. It's a secret Isak had no clue existed.

"Stop it," Isak groans, hiding onto Even's biceps as a koala onto his tree trunk.

"Ah!" Even scoffs indignantly, his muscles tensing up under Isak's face. "I'm not doing anything!"

"You're making me feel too much,” Isak mumbles, trying to sweep off the stupid grin he can't get rid of on the fabric of Even's sleeve.

Even explodes into giggles, and it's something in the way it goes, be it the pitch or the tone, the brightness underneath or the hue. Deja vu takes Isak back to when one became two, then shrank to half, to a fraction. The day Isak left less even though with more baggage, falling in love with a _him_ and corroborating everything he already knew regarding his nature.

Isak is in love. Terribly. Which is such a terrible word for it.

He climbs Even's six-foot-three frame, making an aborted movement with his leg, blocked by Even's knee bent up. He drops his head on Even's shoulder hunger for contact, throwing his arms around him in a forceful whole-bodied hug, shutting his eyes at what is in his arms. Even, who so uninvitedly came, so uninvitedly became. The other half that got infinite.

Isak kisses him around his ear, whispering _'beautiful'_ - a rite Even has started - trusting Even to get that when he says this he's thinking about everything Even is.

Even rolls Isak on his back as unfolding a holy artifact, leaning over him through a waterfall of blonde hair. Isak drops his head back, extends his arms over his head, abandoning himself into the eyes have ignited fire into his existence.

"I wish I was part of your every day," says Even, leaning down for a peck that just scratches Isak's exposed Adam's apple.

"My days are boring," Isak closes his eyes at the unsettling touch. "Today was boring. Normal boring."

"Am I boring? Is this what you are saying?" says Even low, his baritone voice talking to Isak's inners as he lowers himself over Isak, heavy and perfect.

“No, you're annoying,” says Isak, his pants contradicting him.

"Hum," Even strokes Isak's hair, makes old Isak jealous, wondering in the past how it would feel to have someone to do just that.

The Isak would never be this easy in anyone's presence, let alone a man. An Isak who now has this same man unlocking all the pleasure hidden in his body through his big hands. The things Isak takes for granted now, it's really amazing. The old Isak had no clue.

"Tell me about your day..." Even prays.

“I woke up, got out of the bed, brushed my teeth,” says Isak shaking his head and widening his eyes as saying _'woow'._

Even draws circles on Isak's cheek with a thumb, encouraging him to continue a story has no meaning.

"I took a baaath..." Isak's voice melts middle-sentence shamelessly, can't help it when Even touches him this gently. "Then I got my extra shift so we could have tomorrow-"

"What did you have for breakfast?"

"I was in a hurry..." Isak scrunches his nose.

"Isak..."

It feels bad and good, to have someone who says his name with this tone of disapproval.

"I work at a bakeshop, Even," says Isak rolling his eyes.

“So you ate there?” Even tries to understand.

Isak doesn't reply, knows whatever he has to say is wrong, rather a deception or a lie.

Even reads all the answers he needs from the lack of it and turns these blue eyes away from him, crumbling down beside Isak.

“You drive me crazy when you don't take care of yourself, Isak,” says Even showing all his frustration through his deep breath.

“Buuunny…” Isak tries to use his cards, lifting himself on his elbows. “Today it was just so busy, I kind of forgot. It's no big deal.”

Mortal silence.

Isak rests his chin on Even's shoulders as a beggar, “Why are you such a freak about food, Even?”

“Because I know what it feels like not eating.”

_What._

“How so?” Isak asks and suddenly needs his hands to be over him, reaches for his stomach unthinkingly and ironically.

“You're maybe too young, but I remember during the war how we skipped lunch to have dinner.”

It messes with Isak's heart, hurts Isak in the present what has hurt Even in the past. Maybe more, with the awareness there is nothing Isak can do about things that no longer last. It's a crippling feeling of having failed to protect him.

“Baby?” says Isak brushing a thumb on Even's forearm ever so gently, touching his forehead against the side of Even’s face. “I promise I will eat, okay?”

"You don't mean it," says Even making a childish voice, one that matches Isak's secret smirk.

Isak knows he has been forgiven already.

Isak nods, running his nose on Even's cheek, loves giving him this sweetness. He uses his baby voice too, “I promise.”

He truly means it, despite the silliness of his tone. It seems a big betrayal to lie to his accomplice in the lie they tell the world.

“Yeah?” Even peeks him with the corner of his eyes, holding Isak's biceps. “Will you take care of yourself when I'm not there?”

Isak uses and abuses of his long lashes while confirming it.

"Why would you do that?” Even throws him an unimpressed glance through which Isak can read as a glass.

“Because you love me and you asked me so,” says Isak unblinkingly.

It doesn't take long until Even melts into that pouty smile of him, "Thank you, baby."

And if there is a norm it's _'Isak must reach these pouty lips'_.

An idea makes Isak's lips curl middle-kiss. He parts their mouths with a sound smack, crawling hastily for his backpack, doesn't look back as he reaches for an apple inside it. He takes a barbarian bite of it and turns to Even with a chewing grin that pops all the dimples on his cheeks.  

"Yummy," Isak chokes a chuckle that saves part of the juice escaping down his jaw, which he cleans up with a middle finger.

"Idiot," says Even on his elbows with his long legs stretched over their sleep bag - something they have also bought together.

And seeing Even all soft hair and soft lips in his sweatpants, Isak can't conceive his luck. And if sometimes he takes a good look at Even's face before claiming his soft moans with his lips, it's just because it seems like an illogical dream. Sometimes.

He just has to make him smile.

"Am I an idiot?" Isak smiles like a prick, and takes another bite, adding to a mouth that is inflated like a balloon. "Hu?"

"But I do like seeing you eating," says Even, swinging his feet at the confession. "It's one of my favorite things."

"Best apple I've ever had," says Isak faintly, his heart leaping, because he just needs to eat, and whose heart can take it?

"C'mere, clown," Even calls, reaching out for Isak's ankle, clawing at the air as Isak dodges him.

"I am eatiiing," says Isak scowling, putting emphasis in the wrong syllables.

Even huffs surprised, his brows lifted, "Fuck, you're so cute."

From all the things they have done, _cute_ makes him blush.

Even pounces on him again, Isak hops clumsily from one foot to the other, laughter trapped inside his swollen cheeks. He fights with their tent to escape outside, ignoring Even's appeals behind him. Isak steps backward under the infinite skies, smiling because his loneliness just lasts a while. Isak leaps backward provocatively, biting his apple as Even stands up outside.

Their eyes meet and they crack a big smile that just exists as part of this relationship.

Both barefoot and in their sleeping clothes, Isak beckons him to step closer, saying ' _bring it on_ ' with the gesture of his hand. Even giggles at the challenge and steps in. Isak lets out an unexpected high-pitched squeak before turning around and running, throwing the apple's rest to the ground. Isak checks on Even over his shoulder, now speeding up as an Olympic contender, chasing him with all purpose of catching him. Isak accelerates, tries to fight the wind with his chest out, to postpone the imminent and exciting crash of their bodies. He laughs and changes their paths, not caring about how feminine he may look like. He has this joy makes everything all right, makes him forget about things he once sacrificed, turning around and pretending they are on ice, holding an imaginary stick, skating backward and performing C cuts on the ground.

“Valtersen on ice!” Isak narrates, working the movements through muscular memory. “Even can’t touch the puck! It's protected, ladies and gentlemen!”

Even's peals of laughter make him not to stop, make him poke deep-rooted memories that flood him with oxytocin and a feeling of belonging.

"Dee-fense!" Isak chants in laughter every time he dribbles him. "Dee-fense!"

Their laughter echoes in Isak's head and he won't ever forget it, the sounds of this night. Nineteen years old, none of these years happier than these months.

Even opens his arms like he wants to embrace the night and wrap Isak on it. He dives for Isak's leg and tackles him to the ground, and Isak contorts, but his _'penalty!'_  screams end in laughter. Isak’s squirmish figure looks down his body to Even grabbing his foot with his two big hands, then pressing a lingering kiss to the top of it.

It's outrageous, it's what it is.

The sky bows down along with Isak as Even crawls over him on all fours like an elegant predator. Shoulder blades rolling up and down with grace as Isak is forced to take his eyes without any filter but the twilight. Blue lovely matching the delicate, pink-tainted blush running down Even's neck disorderly. Gosh, Isak will be rock, wall, shield, will shelter these flawless features.

And Isak who names everything - even their kisses - catches himself too dizzy to label this feeling stirring up inside. It's something of fear but just on the best end of it. Even could never be a menace, yet Isak gasps as Even intercepts his hand to suck a lingering kiss to his throbbing pulse. Isak's heart trips over itself as Even peppers a final sweet kiss to the lines carry Isak's life, intertwining their fingers and pinning them beside Isak's forehead. He uses it as leverage to lower himself in an inverse push up that makes them accommodate each other ever so relentlessly. And gosh.

This pair of blue eyes alone undoing Isak when Even mutters at close range, “Beautiful.”

See? No menace, it's the undoubted criminal. And Isak has been told this so often, can't help believing it a little, gazing Even trying to make his eyes pretty, round, greener.

"Even?" he says, knowing very well that what he's about to say it's stupid, doesn't fit the mood, but he enjoys extending his mind within Even's reach. "You know when people die in an accident or something, then close people gotta recognize them?".

Their eyes remain locked.

“You're this to me,” says Isak smiling through the gap of his teeth, as though he's giving Even a gift. "The one to recognize me."

It's not until Even stills in his arms that Isak realizes the darkness of his thought.

He just meant to say it feels nice having someone can figure him out like that, someone who knows the cafe-au-lait, hammer-shaped birthmark on his hips, the texture of his ribs and every curve of his lips. And it's not like Even has seen him full-naked - they're just not _that_ depraved - Even is unrevealing him by fragments. 

When Even speaks again, he melts into a smug smile, “Oh, but I have been studying."

Isak smiles that closed-mouth Monalisa smile that ends up giving too much.

Even sighs and disarms, his neck losing strength and tilting to the side.

"Isak...baby, bunny.” He says as though he is having trouble choosing a single name. “Let me kiss you?"

"Until the end of times?” Even amends.

Isak struggles to reconcile the dichotomy between the hurt and the joy battling in his chest.

Isak nods, his smile enlarging just because it's Even _-_ it's _him -_ and the downfall is like this, Isak and Even sharing luminous grins, approaching at a darned slow pretentious pace, teasing all the way down.  _'Is this thing in your pants part of your boring day?', 'it's more the boring guy sitting on it', 'oh yeah?', 'yeah'_. Isak's heart skips beats and beats, he hardly, hardly can take it. And when their smiles are about to collide, when their eyes have already fallen shut for the relief, Even chooses to delay it by nuzzling Isak's nose, then his bearded jaw and his smooth cheek. Isak fights to breathe and squeezes their joined fingers. Even cradles the top of his head with his free hand in response. Isak has never felt so trapped, full and full-filled.

"Isak."

"Even," he echoes.

Their young and fleshy lips seek each other and meet, lips just made for it, moving surely as though they can prevent each slide of their tongues. Maybe it's what comes with practice, intimacy, or whatever name you give it when you know someone's scent as flavor because you have swallowed it. Isak feels like smiling all the time and lets it slip out sometimes, kissing Even breathlessly, pulling in and out of it, then smiling again to their stubbornness.

Isak would die and rebirth to relive this moment.

The day Even kisses him smiling on the grass. Isak will keep this memory as a treasure, relieving in the thought there is light touching them that will travel out there forever, turning this moment eternal. When they are both still perfect, and Isak was loving Even through and through, and through every pore.

The day Even breaks through the last layer.

They refuse to end it, sipping honey from each other lips, so sweet Isak curls under him. It's the 60's and there is neither warning nor sense when Even untangles their fingers - one at a time - reaching out with his index finger to draw on Isak’s exposed palm. First, just circles, as if deliberating it, giving tickles to Isak's stomach on every curve of it, then a 'M' makes him stop his mouth and just take. He takes the 'A' with stilling surrender and curiosity. The double 'R' breathing furiously because now there is no doubt. When the 'Y' comes he cracks his eyes open. The 'ME' gets lost in Even's blonde lashes serving him like a curtain.

And for a split second, shorter than that, more or less around the second  _'R'_ , they are blank - nor man, nor woman - and the word and the meaning haven't linked. Then, Isak has a single condensed moment of a numb happiness, to an idea that is no idea but ties Even to forever. When the synapsis happen, though, Isak, with the astonishment of the betrayed, shoots him an unrequited glance _'why would you say that?'_

And to explain what happens next, Even would have to know things about Isak's psyche that he was only scratching at. Isak is a creature of layers, and as much as this may be a nice metaphor, it also oversimplifies everything. Perhaps if there were names for each of them, Even could begin understanding that even though they share the same purpose, they're distinct in struggles.

First, the primordial layer, the crust of _shame_ , which turns Isak tough but also brings the anguish. Even broke through it as if it was butter. Which is maybe just side effect of Isak watching lips that no literary description would make justice pleading  _'if you stop now, I die'_. Again, butter.

On the reverse side of shame, sharing the same layer is _fear_ , which Even rearranged with things like  _'one kiss for your thoughts'_  followed by stolen pecks at desert streets, earning punches and nervous laughter. And now this layer is only the tissue conducts the shivers throughout Isak's spine. 

Deeper, there is the turtle-hard carcass,  _self-hatred._  Sometimes not apparent on the surface, but always, always well-encrusted, which is an important trait of this layer. It took Even smiles and smiles to get past these miles. Like brainwashing,  _'beautiful', 'beautiful', 'beautiful'._

The next layer, unnamed, a bastard, bastard one, too complex to express in one word. Isak was in peace with this layer, was living with it as a chronic patient. The one makes him believe despite the beauty in Even, and the rightness of their feelings, there is no true beauty in their togetherness, just surrender, weakness.

That is the thing Isak hadn't learned how to conceive the night Even kissed him thoroughly, asking with unspoken words something dared to turn them holy.

_'Marry me.'_

Isak peels himself off Even gently - even then - staring at the grass. His breathing falters more, more he breathes, he can't process shit. Isak crawls, then kneels, walks away, barefoot straight to nowhere.

He doesn't follow him. _Good, good_. Isak focuses on this little victory, walking past Even's motorbike.

"Isaaaak!" Even cracks into a wailful scream, as if he can't take it, any further step away.

The hair on the back of Isak's neck stands up, he has never heard him quite like this, has never heard anyone quite like this. Breaks him in half, he halts, bends down.

Isak regrets it before he has even turned back. Even is on his feet engulfed by dusk, one shoulder higher than another as though he's dismantling. Still his little chick in his sleeping shirt stretched out on the collar. Isak's heart soars.

"Even."

He echoes.

"Why would you say that?" says Isak, quiet and sad, soft as when he's in the crook of Even's neck.

"I just-" Even stammers. "We kissed like _that_ and I just couldn't stand that there was one person in the world I had asked to be mine and it wasn't you. It made me sick."

"Even, what you and I are doing-" Flashes haunt Isak, he says bitterly, "I'm no girl, Even."

"It's not-" Even grimaces. "' _Wha-What you and I are doing?'_ And what is that, Isak? What is that we are _doing_?"

"You know what..."

"I for hell know what _I_ am doing. Maybe it's you, Isak, who should ask yourself what _you_  are doing?" 

"What the hell is this supposed to mean?"

"I'm not like you, Isak!" Even cries out, his voice cracking as if it was exposed to too many stress and tore up. "I can't make it on a couple weekends every now and then! It's never enough, I feel like I'm always stealing time."

Isak's stomach ties up in knots, he gets this close of squatting down on the ground. He clutches his own waist to hold his guts in place.

"I miss you _every_ day," Even mutters as if he is telling him a dirty, dirty secret. "I can't, Isak, I can't, but you can. And what does it say about you?"

"What?" Isak pokes the knife. "What does it say?!"

"Just drop it, okay?" he says throwing his hands up in surrender, finding his hair nervously.

"Don't! You don't get to stop now, you were saying something!"

Even looks him straight in the eye - which is the thing cuts him open - when he says, "I think, Isak, you do lack some craving."

Isak scoffs his lungs out, then scoffs again, and again, until his shoulders keep the inertia of this movement. His face screws up and his mouth falls open in a wrecked silent scream. Prior any sound, the tears come down, tracing patterns down his cheeks, untangling with his gold stubble.

Even shoots no, no, no, no, no, no and in no time he's on him, over him, around him. Isak shoves him away any way he can, his breathing still interrupted. There won't ever be air again.

When Isak's pitiful and long wail comes, it's so desolate, it hurts the night. He clutches painfully at his forehead, covering one of his eyes, sobbing each word, "I...think...of...you...every...minute...of...the...day."

He snorts wetly, messed, is so ugly when he cries. He sobs unceasingly, "The only home I know is _our_ tent."

He cries and feels sorrowful for himself, and how ridiculous he is, with his nose running and his face tomato red. He's all wet, making a bad job of turning away from Even and mumbling inwards pathetically  _'don't look at my face'._

Isak uses his sleeves to clean himself when Even extends him some clothing. Even has taken his shirt off, for him, this makes Isak's heart to collapse, using the fabric to choke his new burst of sobs. And when it smells like _him_ , it doubles.

Isak peeks at Even through his blurry vision and gets him looking back at him awestruck, as if Isak is unrevealing in front of his eyes and he just sees wonder. He has his arms slightly opened, Isak wonders if they were like that the entire time, ready to catch him. Isak's body talks to him first, his arms lifting in a childish ask. It's the only clue Even needs, he darts his arms around Isak, melts with him to the ground, where he brings him to his lap, cradling him as you do to a baby, sustaining Isak's head in the crook of his arm and wrapping Isak's torso with the other. Even holds him tightly, rocking them back and forth at a catatonic pace, turning his chain of  _'I'm sorry, I'm so stupid'_ into a bitter lullaby.

Isak cries with his cheek and lips smashed against Even's bare chest, his arms clumsily crushed against this body, useless. Flooded by Even's scent, Isak lets all the tears burst out of his chest, healing as crying never was in the loneliness of his pillow.

"They made me quit hockey," Isak cries on repeat as if reciting every single thing has ever hurt him. "They made me quit hockey. And this was my only dream."

Isak gives another deep sob.

Even shushes him, unfolding Isak ever so gently, looking at him with blue eyes dancing on tears. Even is so beautiful with his eyes shining, so, so beautiful, it hurts deep inside. Even is perfect, the only perfect thing Isak has ever had.

Isak's blotched face is the last thing should represent any risk, but when he says it, he says it between teeth, "If anyone touches _you,_  I will make them dead."

And this time he chokes his sob.

Even's response isn't what Isak expects, it never is. Even bends down, tries to clean Isak's tear by sipping them, sucking reassuring kisses throughout Isak's face. Isak doesn't know what to think of it, he takes it gasping through his remaining hiccups, inebriated by so much skin against skin.

Even gives Isak the answer to what was never asked out loud, "We'll think of something."

This isn't unprecedented for him to say, but this time it calms Isak's soul, he lets it sink in, they'll think of something.

"The first time I woke up with you in my arms, at the good and old Magnus' cabin, I swore to make my life about your happiness," Even confesses. "I'll make you happy, Isak. I swear. Just let me show you."

"I'm happy," Isak blurts out, big eyes looking upwards at him, his lips trembling.

Even huffs sadly, brushing Isak's lower lip with his thumb and staring at him with adoration, "Green-eyed light of my life."

"Are you?" Isak cuts him off with his now thick voice. "Happy?"

"I have experienced happiness in different forms," Even looks back half-lidded. "But no happiness was real until you, angel."

Isak allows himself to smile, then says, "Can you squeeze my forehead the way you do?"

His head hurts like a bitch, but he won't tell Even that.

Even chuckles softly, careful not to shake him, as if Isak is sacred and fragile, then mutters, "You make it too easy to make you happy, baby."

He reaches for Isak's temple, undoing Isak with steady touches. Isak almost falls asleep moaning softly on this chest he won't comment has never been this naked.

"Let's get you to bed, bunny," says Even softly, helping him to his feet.

Isak leans on these shoulders are home, a smirking twisting his lips as he reaches for Even's ear to whisper, "Tomorrow we're going to have breakfast."

Even snorts, louder than he normally would, throwing the shirt was over his other shoulder on Isak's face.

"You know what, let's have two breakfasts," says Isak hoarsely from all the crying, uncovering himself.

"Ouch!" Isak overreacts to the soft bite Even gives to his cheekbones. "I didn't mean me!"

Even tries to tickle Isak's belly, who skillfully defends himself holding one of Even's wrist, and twisting his body to the side.

Even pulls him closer, wrapping Isak's waist tightly, "Don't. Don't go."

Isak stops, looks at him with furrowed brows. 

"I have never been more scared in life than seeing you leaving," Even admits.

Isak promises right then and there, staring at Even at the most perfect he gets,  _I won't ever leave you._

Even gets them into their tent, zips it carefully as Isak eats the chocolate he makes him have, because _'cocoa is good for the morale'_. Something has made Isak laugh and Even light up in response. Even watches delighted Isak swallowing the sweet, staring back at Even suddenly too conscious of Even's nakedness, darting his eyes hopelessly through that long, long chest. Even is so beautiful, every tiny little piece, Isak sometimes wonder if it's the love feeling coloring his sight.

Even reads Isak's lingering stare all wrong, turns to his backpack to get another shirt, to what Isak surprises them both, "Don't!"

Even turns at Isak that is purple-red.

When Isak's resolution descend upon him, he gives Even a last long glance before crossing both arms over his stomach and clutching at the hem of his shirt. His lashes are glued to his cheeks as he peels the shirt off slowly, under Even's burning stare. There is something so sexless about the intimacy of it that makes Isak's heart stumble.

He bows down slowly, inviting Even over with his lashes, his blush and his bare chest. His heart beats so fast, so fast, when Even joins their chests ever so eagerly - which should be comical but isn't. Isak gasps, not expecting that much of a trouble to his heart. He closes his eyes and clutches Even's bare skin over his nipples almost painfully, feeling the muscles and the softness of this skin, breathing savagely this scent. Even does the same, as their chests meet each other for the first time. It sets him on fire.

Even never tries to get more than Isak is giving him, this night they still exchange their love-dovey glances, then mewling versions of _'I love you, baby'_ and _'I love you too'_ that sounds like a familiar song now. Their good night kiss lingers too much and tastes like cocoa, that is good for the morale.

Isak sleeps this night like he will sleep all next nights he gets to spend with Even, sprawled on Even's bare chest, his nose tucked on Even's Adam's apple, breathing his own breath mixed with Evens scent. That is the flavor drives him to sleep tonight, in their tent - which will be folded the day after tomorrow, but not today - holding Even's hand under their single pillow and touching their dirty feet.

The last layer doesn't come down easily, but how sweet it's beneath it, Isak has found togetherness imprinted in his bones.

**.**

Isak wakes up with kisses on that spot near his ear. The one makes delicious goosebumps pop up on the back of his neck, makes him smile in his slumber.

"It's midnight, beautiful" Even sings gently in his ear, gives Isak time to adjust to his new gained consciousness.

Isak blinks his eyes open slowly, smiling that innocent way you just do when you're not fully awakened.

It has been just a couple of hours, but yesterday seems a lifetime ago, so much has happened since then. Isak lands his hand gently on the skin of Even's chest to lift himself and pucker his lips for him.

Even gives him five kisses, one per month, something they do since month one despite Isak's protests  _'this doesn't escalate, Even.'_

Even prefers to deal with this later.

"Thank you for the five months, green eyes," Even whispers, then kisses the corner of his lips, his cheek, and his forehead.

It feels odd, being thanked by time.

Isak stretches his lips anyway, likes the pet name, makes him feel pretty and wanted.

And that night, when Even accompanies him in the middle of the night to the hangars so Isak can use the bathroom, Isak turns to him, swaying at the door frame, "Hey."

Even furrows back in acknowledge.

"What would have been my answer?"

Isak watches Even and his sharp jaw in his thinking process, he feels so much love running in his sleepy mind.

_If I tell you, you'll know it, if you tell me, you'll have known it all the way._

"You would have said yes."

Isak smiles, blows him a kiss - his turn to reward him - then heads to the bathroom, freezing when realizing what he has just done. Isak will blame his state of mind later.

It's true, Isak would have said yes, five months into it, if there was anything to say. And gosh, it has been only five months, but it feels like infinite has accompanied them all the way.

And sometimes, seeing Even from a distance, lost in his little things, going for their coffee with a blush from the cold, or focused on the engine of his motorbike before leaving him, lost in his drawings hooking his hair around his ear, these times Isak can finally perceive him detached from himself. And then, Isak wonders whether it's too soon to be this sure. But as Even says,  _'I didn't need time to know it was you, I just needed you.''_

Now Even kisses him and it's not like it used to be, chill and shivers, now it's warm and wrapping. They kiss for ages, getting bolder with their bodies, fighting them trying to curl. And Isak realizes, no feeling has vanished away, they're only getting deeper, rotting, settling down.

Becoming foundation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, spilling out everything without any specific order:
> 
> If this were a book, it would be the end of chapter one and would be called "Foundation" :p.  
> What doesn't mean anything...it's just how I'm structuring this in my head, in archs.  
> I'd say this first arch was about Isak struggling and growing to accept his feelings towards men. One in special. 
> 
> We built what we need for what is about to come next. 
> 
> So much is plotted inside my head. But your comments really help to shape my thoughts.
> 
> Thoughts? Wishes? Any 60's songs would like to be featured?
> 
> Hockey and Isak. Stay tuned.
> 
> Also, there is here a silly metaphor... the apple as a symbol of sin and Adam's apple/masculinity, that Isak embraces in the end by sleeping comfortably against Even's Adam's apple.
> 
> Some disclaimer about II World war, I read that Norway had a period of deep scarcity of food during war, that people would need to join huge lines to get some food.
> 
> I can't control endless kisses, I hope you have signed for it :sighs:
> 
> This is shamelessly inspired by Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx, a beautiful and short story.
> 
> "green-eyed light of my life" is a line by loveevak (my co-author in "To The Boy With Green Eyes")
> 
> Any guesses what will be next arch about?


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little insecure about this chapter, but wanted to push it faster.
> 
> Your comments, I can't thank you enough, they are everything, every single one of them <3
> 
> alter er lov.

**Even's house, December 2nd, 1961**

 

_Coming from inside the house_

[ _https://open.spotify.com/track/6qfIne1xNg5GDcmg73x0N8_ ](https://open.spotify.com/track/6qfIne1xNg5GDcmg73x0N8)

 

Isak cracks his neck from side to side, breathes deeply then heads to the doorstep. It has been too long, more than enough, almost one month. It can be felt in the loneliness left to his poor limbs, that just need. _Him_. Isak misses a _'him'_ , it's in peace with it, has missed his ' _him'_ amazingly, thoroughly, as a crazy nut, is about to crumble with just the prospect of seeing his face, a glimpse, something will reaffirm _'against all odds, we are in love'._

 _'Will you wait for me?'_ Even had asked then, hidden by the bushes behind Isak's house, in the wee hours when the doubts speak out.

Isak had kissed him so, so sweetly that Even had whimpered, and that was it.

 _'This is for us',_ Even had spoken, breathlessly after their goodbye.

The reality though, oh, it took its toll on him. There are no numbers to count the times Isak had got himself scheming, trying to follow him in Tromso. People said are you okay, are you catching a cold? Isak didn't tell no one. Same old song. Isak had mentalized Even's happiness out there becoming a pilot so he could sleep, and had lived for the letters:

_'I'm seeing so much and meeting so many people, but I think of you all the time. What would you have said about those mountains? Would you have laughed at this joke? More I see of the world, more I realize how precious you are. You'll always be my wonder. Forget me, don't forget that. Yours forever, E.'_

And now he is back within reach.

Isak stretches his dark green coat that Even has slipped through a blush _'it's the same color of your tuxedo, that day we first kissed'_. Then fixes the mask is invisible to the eyes. He knocks, and maybe he'll be the one answering. Isak fears, that it will light up beneath his skin and makes him glow, the yearning he holds for his best friend.

It's not him when the door opens. Isak has to lower his sight to the bouncy miniature makes the role of his host. His face softens and the mask shakes, looking into the eyes are Even but not. The nose he knows all the curves. The same avid energy. She is so him, his heart stumbles.

"Isak, Isak, Isak," she hops and shrieks with a big gap between his teeth. Isak wonders if every Even is programmed to adore him in equal measure. "I'm five years _oooold_."

The last word, said with the appropriate gravity for someone has reached this level of maturity makes Isak huff and let out a loose chuckle gives him out too much this close to real world.

Isak clears his throat then returns her a big silent scream that makes his mouth turn into an exaggerated circle and her to laugh.

"We made a _huuuge_ snowman," she says awestruck with how, how big it was, illustrating the hugeness of it with his tiny arms. "Uncle Even put two noses on him!"

She giggles like bells, it's Even in there! Isak's heart hurts with longing as she keeps rambling about all the things have rocked her world. A talking that never leaves the foyer.

She halts for a moment, peeking at him with his big blue eyes, swaying on her feet, "Uncle Even said you wouldn't come to my birthday."

Isak makes a face, "And you think your uncle knows anything?"

She gasps amused as if Isak has said the biggest of the subversions. Isak can't help smiling, hasn't lived to see the crinkles by the Naeshein's eyes and not to react.

"Sell me! Sell me!" she yelps agitated, lifting his chubby arms.

Isak had never known before how careful you have to be with the things you show five years old.

Isak adjusts the grocery bags over his shoulders and picks her up with an exaggerated huff. He walks into this house that smells like Christmas when Christmas used to be a thing, carrying her like a shield, almost upside down on his hips. She yelps delighted, earning all the eyes of the living room.

"He's selling me!" she spoils everyone.

Isak scans the room full of Even's relatives, his heart sinking at the realization the only blondie that matters is not there.

"I found this little pig out there," Isak states with a chuckle, inadequate in this house without him around.

"Please don't kill my daughter, Isak," says Even's brother unimpressed.

"I may be interested," says Even’s father, a man of his late fifties and silver though abundant hair.

Isak comes closer, showing off the product, that snorts. The room cracks into laughter.

“Maybe try at the kitchen?” says Even’s father giving a welcoming squeeze on Isak’s shoulder.

In moments like this, Isak wonders if they can tell from his eyes, always pulled towards Even, or if they notice how conscious they are of each other's minor movements. Isak wonders if they would still invite him over and squeeze his shoulder, if they were to ever know their activities on the side.

He has never told Even, but sometimes Isak runs this sick game in his mind, making up all ways they could react.

“I could use some bacon!” Even's mom yells from the other room.

Isak heads to the kitchen where a symphony is happening, full of pans and the hiss of things frying. When she sees him, her face cracks into an instantaneous smile that pops all the crinkles by her eyes, pronounced by the years. Has Isak thinking if Even will also have marked on his skin the track of each of his smiles. He smiles back shyly. From everyone and all, she's the one he's more frightened of, which is ironic considering she has been nothing but kind.

"What a big pig," she says tickling the girl's belly, that contorts and hugs Isak's waist.

"I've got some cake from the bakery," Isak all but mutters as if not to break their role-playing, showing his shoulder with the paper bags.

What he doesn't dare to speak out loud is  _'where is him?'_ , not trusting himself not to give out too much, which he probably would, after this month. He does scan the room, though.

"That wasn't necessary, dear. And you know that."

She helps him unloading the bags, then lures the girl to his lap, winning her over with the magic word  _'cake'._

Isak is left there moving from one foot to another, watching grandmother and granddaughter talking, feeling like an intruder. Even's mom catches his sight over her shoulders and mouths, "Attic."

Isak's dimples quiver, he forces them to behave. Isak nods when he wants to kiss her on the cheeks, walks when wants to run. He takes the stairs with lengthy composure, halfway through it skipping two to three at a time. His dimples finally wild.

He halts at the door, his heart tripping over itself, trapped, holding the door handle as if the cold metal is the only real thing left in the world. He peeks inside, catching Even squatted down beside a box, studying the items in there with a cute frown between his eyes. It undoes Isak, he feels that delicious squeeze in his belly all over again. This at least hasn't changed.

Even has his hair natural, unruly waves all over the place. Is it for him?

_Dammit, Even._

A part of him that will always believe this has to be a dream jabs him, _'maybe he has forgotten you, maybe you won't be the same'._

Even looks up nonchalantly, as though pulled by the unsettling idea. They lock eyes, the world stops. Even's face splits in two with an impossible grin. In how many ways one can reveal beauty?

It sets Isak on fire.

_Don't love me this much this close to society._

Even moves. He moves, and he moves.

Even moves and jumps hastily over the boxes, finding Isak's body. His hands burning Isak over the clothing after so long. He pushes Isak, forces him to take some clumsy steps backward, panting already.

They hit the wall with a loud thud and Isak wonders if there will be any survivor out of this encounter. Isak's eyes flit madly between Even's left and right eyes, then the rest of his delicate face, his own mask stomped and forgotten on the floor.

"Beautiful motherfucker," says Even.

He breaks their gaze unwillingly, darting eyes to the door, then clutching Isak's face with both his big hands, driving Isak behind a pile of boxes, not the gentlest way, just that now it's glorious. Even fits their bodies together with a leg between Isak's thighs. Isak flickers his eyes shut, is about to combust, feeling this thing vibrating in the air that wraps them.

“Give me this mouth,” Even prays with a voice so deep shatters Isak’s guts. 

Isak pants over and inside him as Even all but teases their lips, it's not sexual or playful, is more like he can't trust himself to take too much. He places a lazy kiss to Isak's lips, making him swallow the long _‘fuuuuck_ ’ leaves him as relief, as a drug addict, finally reuniting with the object of his desire.

They don't kiss again, they can't trust themselves.

Even touches their chests, panting, panting so much, about to explode. It wasn't nearly enough. Isak still misses him, can't believe he's here yet, has to pat Even's chest, his biceps, wants to check him whole, makes sure he's in one piece, safe and healthy, that he's real and in his arms.

Isak wants also to shove his chest and blame him for this month, _'I missed you until my bones hurt, don't ever ever leave me this alone',_ but knows he could never treat him like this. Rather, he gives him softness, runs his hands over Even's features as rediscovering him, as a blind guy, can't see enough of him with just eyes.

_It's you, it’s really you._

Even dances his face together with Isak's touches, beautifully wrecked. What is this, fuck what is this feeling. What is this they are doing in here? Just as this thought is there, Even buries his nose in Isak's neck, tickling and tickling. Isak has long ago lost control of whatever is it, only tagging along with this feeling conducting him to doom.

Isak jerks his head back and clutches the wood of the wall as Even starts planting kisses throughout his neck. Counting each one.

_He hasn't forgotten._

Even kisses his chin, his jaw and his nose, kisses the corner of his lips and the entirely of his forehead. When he reaches _ten_ , Isak is flushed and in wonder. He is counting their months. _Eleven_ comes with these lips covering Isak's and a kiss has neither a well-defined beginning nor an ending.

They shouldn't, they shouldn't, they shouldn't, but they were apart for twenty-seven days, they can't. Isak keeps tucking Even's hair behind his ear as an escape, responding with soft moans of his own to the ones Even lets out. Just stroking their tongues together in pain, and promising _'next one will be the last of them'._

"These were the best months of my life!" says Even too loudly between their mouths, still making kissing sounds and tasting each other.

Isak chuckles and shushes him, which for some reason makes Even laugh louder as if taking this as a challenge, makes Isak frightened, but not nearly enough to stop.

"You make me the happiest man-" Even defies him out loud.

Isak rushes to cover Even's mouth, throwing nervous glances around, “Oh my God, shut up, weirdo!” 

Isak has known he can be unpredictable, but it freezes his soul.

Even kisses his palm, his eyes shining with pure light. Fuck, he's so beautiful all happy. It's Isak's utter weakness, these very crinkles.

“Man of my dreams,” Even says muffled.

Isak shakes his head with a smile playing on his lips, staring at these playful blue eyes swimming in light, doesn't take long before ‘ _fuck it’._  He replaces his hand with his mouth, fighting each one of Even's smiles to deepen their kiss, not sure whether this is a battle he wishes to win.

“Stop kissing so much.”

They freeze into each other's embrace, every single cell of Isak's body start to blaze. They stare at each other in panic, their bodies couldn't be more connected when they glance at the little girl beside them.

_June._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you asked for glimpses of their families - which was something have always been planned. 
> 
> We are going to see a little more of their surroundings and acquaintances.
> 
> What about the ending, June, hu? :p
> 
> It's 3h50 on Monday, and for some reason, this seems to be the most common period I post. =s
> 
> As always, ideas, thoughts?
> 
> \--
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr "nessauepa" to get early dabbles of Mysterious Ways <3


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your support to this fic, the comments, honestly, speechless.

**Even's house, December 2nd, 1961**

 

_From reminiscences of a racing mind_

<https://open.spotify.com/track/46T7AcNsgYKRdcONnXhhZo>

 

This is how it went, that night, Isak cutting the ice backward at full speed, man to man, like in a dance, one he was good at. He read in his opponent's body language, the wanting that preceded the acting, the stopping and the shooting. As the last stand, Isak stretched his arm impossibly forward, holding his breath not to shake an inch until the sharp sound of stick striking puck reverberated through the whole place. A _'damn impressive quick reaction'_ , as the narrator had described. It was the middle of a match, he was fifteen years old—flying through his growth spurt—the first time Even talked to Isak.

With the cockiest of the grins stuck on his face, Isak tossed a careless glance to the stands, a very specific spot, nothing left to chance. Their eyes found each other, which was just something had been happening. Even always, always, madly always stared back, the intensity of two Suns enclosed in those icing eyes. Isak was going to be beaten up, was frightened, that that boy would hurt him in ways nobody else had the power. Yet, Isak stared back, so terrified.

But it was gravity.

That game, Isak threw him that accidental smile crossing the ice in front of him, intermittently blind by those spotlights that were never intended for players  _that_  interested in the audience. Squinting his eyes, Isak witnessed something breaking in Even's gaze, his big lips drawing a big unmistakable, _'Amazing'_. A praising! Even had talked to him, barely, enough to put Isak's heart into a rhythm was foreign to his chest.

From that day on, Isak showed off to Even who never ever missed a game, warming up with pretentious flips had as the only effect enervating his coach. Isak played for the blunt stares they shared in the only place they dared to exchange more than just furtive glances. It was their bittersweet secret, and so prohibited. Isak wondered if Even realized all of his defenses were dedicated to him, if he caught the thoughts Isak cast to the stands,  _I think you look like an angel._

Much later, after they found love in each other, Isak—holding and being held, tucked into his Adam's apple—asked Even about that night. It was when Isak realized the story of the first time Even talked to Isak was also the story of when Isak first smiled to Even.

Even had also said,"It was my boy, m'boy playing there. During sixty minutes at a time, you were mine".

To what Isak had craned his neck up, spoke through his flashing separated teeth, "Now I'm yours all the time".

"Now you're mine all the time", Even had agreed.

And this is why now it triggers deep spots in Isak's soul, to sit across Even in this living room, surrounded by people, trying to measure his own gazes, to tone down, not to love him too much through his glances. Just that this time is harder, for Even is smiling, defying, pulling his hair viciously off his face like he wants it falling down again each time more uncivilized, in ways he knows disarrays Isak. Isak thinks he looks like an angel, still, wonders if Even's relatives think the same, that Even is the most beautiful person of his family.

Edgar is the eldest son and June's father, it's not Even but has the same nose, which oddly doesn't feel that right without plump lips folding in on itself. Not an unattractive face, just craves an easy smile. Ellen is the youngest, she does have the smile, though not the lips, which would add much more to her beauty. And she is, pretty, just that she lacks all these little things Even has to spare. Even is the middle-born, the one has condensed all the beauty in his family within a single human form.

Or perhaps it's just Isak's sight flourished by desire. Sight, which is the sense Isak is valuing most nowadays, the one he can use in a room full of people, though no longer trustable, giving Isak is so in love with its recipient. Maybe Edgar's and Ellen's significant others feel the same about their lovers, though Isak doubts this with all his strength for if he were them, boy, he would touch Even at least twice as much as they do to their partners. Boy, if he could, Isak wouldn't now be fisting the arms of this chair, would be there, taking the full power of those smiles.

Next time the pull is there, it's impossible not to stare. Isak lifts his eyes and something catches his attention. Even seems absorbed in some chatting happening between his sister and his mom, but his hand has a movement of its own over his collarbone. Even traces ever so stealthily three letters over his shirt, _'ILU',_  which feels like a caressing in the pit of the stomach. And when is Even's turn to stare, Isak checks on him with his peripherical vision while doing the same, just that over his thigh. That is just how they say _'I love you'_ in the middle of the world.

Love is strange, Isak has discovered, makes the heart hiccup and the schedule of the world slow down. There are months in these seconds that Isak fights the smile keeps teasing his lips and just vanishes away when it's June again, standing up on the couch to speak up.

"What is  _bribe_?" she scowls.

Everyone laughs, but Isak. He has never been more scared in life, having June as the epicenter of the living room, doing all the talking from her stage. Even's eyes snap over to Isak as if repassing the earlier words ‘ _she didn't think more of it, baby’._

"It's  _bride_ , sweet," June's mom, Olivia—the only non-blonde creature in this room—corrects her and stretches the end of her dress.

"What is bride?" June repeats.

"It's what aunt Ellen is going to be in a couple months, at her wedding."

"What is wedding?" she all but barks.

Everyone laughs.

"It's when two people throw a  _big_  party," her grandma holds her hands apart. "Because they love each other." 

June's small forehead creases as if she is trying to make up this information.

"Like uncle Even and Isak?”

Nervous laughter and chokings are heard throughout the room, Isak watches everything as an outside-the-body experience, going pink in the cheeks and becoming a statue that just stares at his lap.

"No, sweetheart," June's mom explains to her. "A wedding needs a boy and a girl."

"Whyyyy?" she asks disappointed.

"Because everyone knows the bride is the only thing really matters at a wedding," Even's dad laughs.

"Shouldn't it be the love?" Even's imposing voice resonates through the room.

_What the fuck are you doing?_

Even has both arms spread like wings along the top of the couch cushions while Isak sinks into his armchair across him. Isak doesn't dare to lift his eyes, hopes Even can feel the heat wave has taken his body. And shut up.

"Nah, it's the bride," says Ellen, then bursts out laughing, followed by everybody else.

"Can't uncle Even be the  _bribe_?" June asks.

Even jerks his head back and laughs that thick laugh of his. If Isak had any piece of himself wasn't mortified, he would have thrown him a mortal glance.

"A bride has to use a dress, baby," her mom explains it patiently. "Uncle Even can't use a dress."

"Why not?"

Laughs.

"Because he's a boy."

"Why can't boys use dress?"

“Because they don't shave their legs, bubby,” says Even's dad promptly.

June scrunches his nose confused and loses interest after that, focusing instead on climbing the sofa, walking over all of its seaters.

“Well, maybe this way you would go through it, Even,” Edgar laughs.

Even glares at him violently.

“Isak?” Edgar startles Isak that can just think _let me out of it._ “Have Even told you about his wedding?”

"Edgar..." his mom reprimands him.

"What?!" he shrieks. "I was the best man, it was tragic back then, but we should be able to laugh it off now."

Isak has to, he has to look at Even. Even moves his neck to him slowly, forcedly, and they lock eyes right there, in the middle of the world.

“Man, he completely flipped out, because 'his heart wasn't beating right'," he snorts.

Isak's heart aches, all the muscles of his face give up.

"He was so out of it. I told him it was just nerves, but he kept insisting the feeling wasn't right, the feeling wasn't right. I tried to bring him to his senses 'what the hell is that you were expecting to feel?'."

"'A whole life happening in a kiss'," Even breaks his silence, not his gaze.

"Right!" Edgar snorts. " _Destiny_."

Isak sees their first kiss through Even's words, feels the taste of Even's tongue mixed with the punch, and the frenzy of that moment. The whole life he lived enclosed in those minutes.

"Even, Even, this way you're going to die alone."

Even doesn't mind him.

"I hurt her bad, and then I spent three months on bed," Even finishes  _his_ story to a particular listener of intense green eyes.

The air can be cut with a knife when June decides to step up. 

“Uncle Even?” June tucks at his sleeves.

Isak's lashes flicker towards her unwillingly.

Everyone follows her leaning in to whisper in Even's ear. Isak sweats nervously, scratching at the wooden armchair, but then Even cracks into laughter.

“She asked if she could marry Isak.”

Isak chuckles surprised. When everyone is laughing, he uses the distraction to peek at Even, but has to avert his gaze immediately. Too fond.

Does Even notice he is getting blunter? Is it the result of this month?

.

Isak leaves the bathroom to Even leaned against the opposite wall, hands behind his back, looking down at the tiles. Even smiles first, just then raises eyes, sparkling blue amazing that is a punch to the heart.

Isak mimics his position in the wall across from him, crossing both hands on his back.

Even says, “Before, with her, I had no parameter for comparison. And now that I have, there is no comparison.”

Isak widens his eyes, Even is too wild sometimes.

"Don't do that here," Isak whispers between teeth.

"I just thought of letting you know," Even says. "You're my dream, not her."

To Isak's frightened ears, it's like Even is yelling.

“You don't care,” Isak mutters accusingly, looking down. “You don't care if they catch us.”

“If you care, I care,” Even's voice is warm and wrapping. "It's just challenging not to be this happy with you around."

Isak fails to ignore these ocean eyes, shining with a smile.

"Can we have a quick chat in my room?" he says.

Isak barks.

"Just one..." says Even, then mouths  _'kiss'._

"You will make us..." Isak imitates him then mouths  _'hard'_.

Even chuckles. He's so happy, his baby, it's contagious.

"I'll kiss you slow," Even all but whispers, one decibel louder than silence.

Isak, succumbing to Even's charming aura already, lifts one brow, tilts his head and says, "And when has this ever worked?"

"This is true," says Even chewing his smile.

"Maybe we should go back," says Isak unsure of why he has added the  _maybe_  when they clearly should come back.

"Maybe we should learn sign language."

Isak throws him an unimpressed glance, but his lips are smiling, the traitors.

Even giggles, writhing lazily onto that wall, his hair free-falling down his face. It's a sight.

"You're doing this on purpose," says Isak.

"What?" he shrieks.

"This..." says Isak pointing to his face.

"Ah," says Even slyly. "This?" He brings a hand to mess his hair up.

It tickles and itches, makes Isak want to cross those two evil steps separating them.

Isak's breath races before he realizes, this is a game two can play.

Isak licks his lips before running the back of his finger through his thin beard, a self-caressing imitates Even's techniques. Isak even leans into it.

Even shuts his eyes and breathe, "Okay."

They sigh both, both of them kind of in pain.

They end up staring like a caressing, mimicking each other's crooked smile, then drawing letters over their chests.

Isak sighs—he does this a lot in Even's house—and it hurts, "When you need to come back?"

"You just have to say one word and I won't."

Isak says none.

"Middle of January," says Even.

Isak nods, hooking his fingers into his belt loops, smiling a faint smile, "I'm so proud of you."

Even lifts his brows and cracks a smile blinds the Sun.

They have plans, like any lovers. Even will finish his course, they will move. Isak and Even will find a place where they can live their romance. Isak still fears, it's all he does, but Even says they'll be fine, and Isak has run out of wanting not to hold onto it, not to live for these pictures Even paints. Even said they're going to have a fireplace, and things will be theirs, like their tent, just that grounded. They'll be fine.

"I meant to tell you..." Even starts. 

Isak's brows troubles as saying _'I'm listening'._

"I said I had someone," Even bites his lower lip hesitantly. "Back there. I said I have a fiancee."

_Fiancee._

"I told them everything about you...besides you're a man. It felt so good, Isak. You have no clue, to let people know I'm not going to die alone."

_Fiancee._

"You're not going to die alone," Isak whispers in awe, hadn't known before Even the power of some words.

That is when Even's mom storms into that corridor, startling both of them, shifting as two mutt cats engaged in some illegal activities. Isak straights back up, hadn't realized he was mewling down that wall.

She stops between them and says to Isak, "I'm sorry, things got out of hand there."

She sighs, her eyes waver between the two boys as she reaches to cup each boy's cheeks, tenderly, the way only a mom does. She chooses Even to look straight on when she says, "Some things are just better not said."

There is no cruelty in the tone, just in the nature of the words.

Isak manages a stupid and meaningless nod to her back. He uses his energy to halt Even with his eyes, makes him swallow the words down, the ones Isak can see is about to burst out his beautiful mouth, Isak makes him know this isn't what he wants. 

Isak doesn't know what he wants, but an unexpected gloom takes him until his bones, and it's not like Isak wants the world to know about them, but being the only guardians of their story feels lonely, fragile, like thin ice at the end of the winter. Any one that falters, it becomes less a story, more a memory. And their story, it feels like it must be remembered.

.

 

Even gets them out of there, rides his motorbike with Isak through wilderness roads where they can lean onto each other. It's chilly and there is ice on the streets, but when you're unfortunate lovers there is no such thing as a choice.

"Hey," Isak likes teasing him, fastening Even's chest and talking little sweet words in his ear when he knows Even has no option but take it with no action. Isak has discovered one is powerful, " _Fiancee_."

"Shit. We're going to crash if you keep that," Even's words come through the bubble of laughter.

Isak giggles.

Even brings the back of Isak's hand to his mouth and kisses it whispering, "My dream." Isak hugs him tighter, his chin over his shoulder.

Isak and Even are happy. Eleven months into it, there is just certainty.

"Baby?" Isak calls him.

Even hums, looks almost like a moan.

"How long were you...with her?"

Isak is just curious.

Even slows down, throws his head back, presses their faces together, "Eight months."

"We're together for eleven," says Isak beaming.

"We are."

Isak stares forward, the white seems infinite ahead of them.

"I can hear your brain working, bunny," says Even.

"How much time is enough?"

Even takes a moment.

"A life?"

Strangely there is no comfort on that. Isak nods entranced by the vastness ahead.

"How much time is that?" Isak suddenly needs to know it. The numbers, the numbers.

"I don't know, Isak," Even shakes his head. "I'm twenty-two...fifty good years?"

 _2011._  Isak makes the math mentally, his breath races.

"This is not enough."

"Isak..."

Even zigzags slowly, delaying any arrival.

"Then what?"

"Bunny..."

"Fifty years then what? One of us die?!"

Silence.

"Promise me you won't die. Not in fifty years, not ever."

"I can't promise you that, bunny..."

"It's that—it's that—"

Isak whispers again in Even's ear, " _I love you—so deeply_."

This time Even shivers, halts, takes Isak by surprise, takes him from that motorbike that falls to the floor without any support. Even presses their lips together and swallows Isak's urgent moans down his throat, sored by the wind. Even makes Isak forget about the boundaries of time sometimes. Sometimes.

"Listen to me, Isak," Even cups Isak's cheeks, looks into his soul. “I promise you _forever_. If there is reincarnation, I will find you over and over again. If there is heaven, I'll love you there too. And if we're just stardust that will eventually return home, we'll be part of the same star.”

Isak bursts out crying. It's too much sometimes, to be loved this thoroughly. Sometimes.

 

.

 

Even drops Isak at his house on the Sunday dawn. They kiss goodbye behind fences and Isak ignores all the signs, all the smiley kisses that were never  _that_  present, the lack of eye contact. Ignores Even's last words that hadn't made sense at that minute, "We're beautiful tonight, bunny."

Next time Isak sees Even, is after crossing Oslo running after Magnus drops the bomb has as effect a literal pause of his heart, "Have you heard of Even?"

_Have you heard of Even?_

If just Isak had known how long it would take to see these crinkles by Even's eyes again, he would have clung to it, would have hugged him so so tightly Even and he would have merged to the same soul. If he knew Even would break all of those promises he made, every single one when he swore not to abandon him. Isak would never ever ever ever have let Even go.

There was happiness, until there wasn't. There were months when Isak was the only one carrying their story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I thought it would be interesting showing them "in the middle of the world".  
> I read an article about a long-term gay couple where they said their partners were close to their families, just that their relationship was something not to talk out loud, not to be acknowledged. Pure and simple hypocrisy. 
> 
> Even's family is a good representation of a lot of personas we might find those days (and unfortunately nowadays).
> 
> There is Edgar, the insensitive, clueless one.  
> Even's father, always trying to turn things into a joke.  
> Even's mother, who can hurt with the best of the intentions and ignorance.  
> And June, that like any child, is pure and see no evil until it is instilled in their minds.
> 
> Last, I'm Brazilian, we just elected a right-wing president (Donald Trump style) whose first act (he took over 3 days ago!) was to remove LGBT concerns from human rights ministry.
> 
> These are scary times and sometimes it looks like 1961.
> 
> Let's spread love.
> 
> Alter er love!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The support and the comments you have been leaving here, it blows my mind and warms my heart, makes me want to write and write.  
> I'm not a native English speaker, and I struggle a lot with that. You are way too nice <3  
> I have so much planned for this, including drafts for even the last chapter.
> 
> <3

**Isak's house, December 9th, 1961**

 

Isak keeps this picture under his pillow, the one they took at that photobooth so many months ago. And if sometimes, barely awake, Isak presses a kiss to every single frame of it, it's not because he’s excessively silly, rather he is devastatingly in love. ****  
  
This day, Isak wakes up again and everything is the same. Just one side of his bed is warm, the wrong one by the way. There are no scents or flavors on it, same boring old day. Isak is not living with his best friend. It's fine, it's okay, Isak is counting the days until this picture can lie between both of them. The days, it can be a few or one thousand, Isak still dreams anyway. Even and he have gotten a plan. ****  
****  
Until then, Isak is preparing himself breakfast, every single day. He doesn't put effort into it, it's true, but he still stuffs food down day after day. He would prefer to sleep more but has promised it to someone to whom he can't deny anything anymore. ****  
****  
Today, Isak pours himself some tap water, scratching his stubbled jaw and yawning lazily through it. His green eyes big and staring blankly out of the window. The sky is so heartbreakingly blue, _Even-blue_ even. It's a lovely day. But aren't they all nowadays? Even the grayest of them are the brightest gray now that he has someone. Isak turns the tap off, sipping the warm water, would rather drink juice but it's not something he can really, really afford. Tea would be great, but he has never learned how to make them right. His mom was the one to do it, before. Before the world inside her head started demanding more attention than Isak himself, before she passed away, a couple of years ago. ****  
****  
It wasn't her fault, and Isak believes it. Mostly. ****  
****  
Now it's just Isak and his father, who is out there again with another fine lady he has met in suspicious ways. Isak doesn't mind, the days he's out are the best of them. So if Isak is sitting at the table, alone, eating his cereal quietly, he is anything but lonely. His mind is spiraling, making up that Even is just about to wake up. And smile. Shattering his heart into one hundred tiny pieces tinier than this cereal. ****  
****  
When someone knocks is atypical, also annoying, forces him to stop daydreaming. It turns it's Magnus, which makes Isak smile, he likes him enough for it. He even invites him over to the kitchen, where Isak lands both hands on the back of his hips looking at his options before offering, "Cereal?" ****  
**  
** Magnus is quiet, hiding from Isak’s eyes. And from a thousand encounters, Isak knows that this is anything but Magnus.

Isak licks his lips and frowns, "What is it? Is it your mother?" ****  
**  
** Magnus gives his head a wailful shake, twisting his cap between his fingers.

"You and Even," he says, makes Isak's mind blaze at the mention of his _friend_. "You have developed quite a friendship..." ****  
****  
There is no question. So Isak doesn't answer, braces himself literally and figuratively. ****  
**  
** "You need to remember you've got other friends," he says staring at one of the pictures hanging crooked on the wall.

 _Why is he the one ashamed?_  
****  
"I don't think—you—have you heard of Even?" ****  
****  
_Have. You. Heard. Of. Even._ ****  
****  
Isak takes it as a literal pause of his heart. It simple...halts, like it's meat, not a muscle essential for his survival. ****  
****  
"What are you saying..." ****  
****  
Isak's eyes burn. His stomach feels funny all of sudden. ****  
****  
"Something happened, I don't know exactly." ****  
****  
Magnus eyes again, inundated, blue until the point of riot. ****  
****  
Isak scoffs. Then scoffs again, it's a way of coping with the moisture is taking his eyes, which he sweeps harshly away because there is no point in being silly. Nothing is wrong, Even is okay. It's just Magnus being his clueless self again. ****  
****  
Isak can't tell Magnus how he knows that, though. That Even is okay because he has promised him fifty years and a fireplace. That Even has never ever even once faultered in his words. That Isak is his bunny, that Even makes stupid funny voices just because it makes Isak laugh. Isak doesn't explain to Magnus that nothing can possibly get to Even, not being loved the way he is. Absurd. The world would be too cruel otherwise. His love, it shields Even's entire existence. ****  
****  
But Magnus is dead serious, and from all the clues, the one it's decisive is Isak's heart that won't settle again. His heart that is funnily beating from all this stupidity. The one that now urges to see Even again. ****  
****  
"Where?" Isak asks it even before the idea is even accepted. "Where is him?" ****  
****  
His whereabouts. To see him and touch. His perfect skin that once was a sin and now is just him, his absolute favorite human being. ****  
****  
Magnus stares at him straight in the eyes, pondering, before giving up, "St. Mary's." ****  
****  
Isak scoffs again, "Why would Even be there, Magnus? Even is just twenty-two years old. Why would they bring Even there? Even, Magnus?!" ****  
****  
"I—I don't know, Isak. Even's mother asked me to call you when I was there this morning. She thinks would be good for him if you could be there." ****  
****  
Isak moves, raged with the messenger. He runs through the house, gathering pieces of clothing and his jacket. Isak is shaking, this much he can say. Even if he still doesn't believe it, why would his perfect boy be enclosed in the same facility once ended his mother? But just the prospect of it...Isak needs to see him and take him under his protective wings. Now. ****  
****  
At the door, Isak freezes with his hand at the handle, Magnus prostrate behind him. And for a couple of seconds of the world, he’s alone. And so lost. His eyes flicker, wavering through the patterns carved in the wood. Isak can't open the door and make it real. But from everything and all, Even being alone, this is the one surpasses all the other fears revolving inside his being.  
  
Isak opens the door and confronts the biting wind.

 **  
**.

 

<https://open.spotify.com/track/3sJFeLtbCpLHUlNbBZeFE5> **  
** **  
** **  
** Isak runs through the streets adorned with Christmas lights. His body and mind in overdrive, one million glimpses of him, images passing quickly through flashes, reminders of their lives connected that seems like forever, not one year. Here and there one memory pops up, shows up just to fade away, giving place to an older and more solidified one. **  
** **  
** Them. Freezing and kissing on Even's motorbike. Even and his loosen smile, always leading to slack kisses that takes its sweet time to heat up. Like Even's lips are a classic engine that needs care and warm up, like kissing his mouth is an art and you need to sip the knowledge from its source, and practice. **  
** **  
** Them. Breathing and leaking sounds the first time they had ever pressed their bare chests together. Even's breath had been so crazy as Isak had groped and tasted, his heart hitting Isak's palms from the inside. Isak hadn't been any better, shutting his eyes closed and suffering amazingly. **  
**  
Them. Kissing on a twilight, thoroughly, on the ground, on the grass, with feelings, and feelings and the impression of being alone in the world. Kissing through time, through life until Even had stabbed his way through Isak's last remaining layer and reached his core, drawing letters and letters formed the sentence dared to turn them holy. **  
** **  
** Them. Crying in a photobooth, both of them, the day Isak discovered happiness was Even and they took the picture has accompanied Isak's every day. It's so precious, so precious, if someone's was to steal this picture Isak would fight for it, risk his life for a piece of paper, for a piece of paper. **  
**  
Them. At the airport entrance, the day Isak had made up his mind supported by the glove he had found on Even's belongings. He had to choose and chase him. Even, over fears and beliefs, over everything wasn't the boy with those magical lips. Isak had been so in love then. He just had mistaken the name of it, had called it sin when it was everything. **  
** **  
** Them. Reuniting at Magnus' cabin after two years of something had felt like longing for something they had never had. And discovering cuddling. Even had been so frightening beautiful on those blank sheets and white shirt, like an angel of light, had twisted Isak's soul. **  
** **  
** Them. Bumping into each other at a Christmas market, Even's eyes had been blue, baby blue, stealing the show of the skies and electrifying Isak's life after a period of a dormant existence. What could look like their paths were fated to collide. But fate or not fate it wouldn't matter, cause given the free will, Isak would have a consistent choice. Inevitable for more than the inexorable destiny was the chant of Even's soul luring him back home. **  
** **  
** Them. Touching lips at that prom, which could seem like a physical experience but had been so much more than it. Isak had dreamed before, dreams he couldn't prevent, but the real thing, Even on his lips, so gentle and smelling so fucking right. Isak couldn't have foreshadowed that night, that Even with touches would bring him purpose, bring him life, bring him home. For something otherwise could have been a waste, of breathing and eating, of watching sunrise after sunrise. Or just surviving. **  
**  
Everything Isak knows now about living, Even was the teacher. And Even might not know, but he has saved Isak in every possible way. That Isak was so lost, that breathe sometimes felt like drowning in acid. That Even has saved him from what could have been a mere existence. That he has given him magic when he would have been okay with just being in peace. Things Even gave him, Isak is to live the day he will ever be able to repay.  
  
Isak isn't only in love, Isak is in an infinite debt.  
  
So Isak runs. **  
** **  
** **  
** .  
  
  
Isak storms in that building as a crazy nut, bumping into the counter, punching all the air out of his lungs. He gets face to face with a receptionist who doesn't look that strange, but who he never bothered to know the name. Isak, who never ever bothered to know anyone in this place. And now he hopes she will be the one giving him answers. **  
** **  
** "Even Bech Naesheim," says Isak between his desperate breathing for air. "Even Bech Naesheim." **  
**  
She raises her eyes from the paper, and there is a pitying tone when she says family, are you family? **  
**  
Isak who has so many labels chokes with all of them. And all the _forevers_ he can't proclaim. **  
** **  
** The light in his eyes dies inside hers. And why, what is that, that every living creature has now gotten blue eyes? But it also gives him purpose. His mind races, making up the one million ways he is going to break into that facility, burn this whole shit hole down.  
  
"Anna." **  
** **  
** Isak jerks his head to the corridor where Even's mother is standing. **  
** **  
** "Can't you see the resemblance?" she says with features that hurt to look at. "He's my son."

"Oh," says Anna. "I'm sorry, Sigrid." Then she turns to Isak, "Mr. Bech Naesheim." ****  
****  
Isak stares at her like an imbecile, then at Even's mother, his legs taking him forward before his brain can cope with it. He hugs her and it's an understatement. He latches himself onto her, for comfort and greeting, mostly for relief. ****  
****  
She pushes him back by his forearms gently and cups his gelid cheeks, taking him in as if she's rediscovering Isak, his parted colorless lips and wide green eyes, his long lashes and his bashfulness. Isak's utter loss that is showing through every pore, "Beautiful, beautiful boy." ****  
****  
And it's stupid, but his mom once said when people say something twice they probably mean it. And this stuck with Isak. ****  
****  
He grimaces softly as he pleads, "I want to see him." ****  
**  
** It's a childish ask, in a childish tone. Any mask, stomped.

"I should have called you earlier," says Sigrid, holding Isak's hands firmly between hers. "But he was adamant about getting better first."

"He—he doesn't want to...see me?"

Stomped.

"He’s just surprised," she speaks conciliatory. "He was telling himself all this time you had cured him."

Isak’s mouth twists in confusion.

She smiles, takes his arm and leads him through insipid corridors makes Isak's heart remember. They stop at a door and Isak takes her sweet smile as encouragement to step forward. Isak is beyond frightened when he opens the door slowly. He peeks inside, sees the walls first, then the two shelves that are empty, lifeless, no books on it, perturbing the walls without purpose. ****  
****  
When his eyes have roamed through every single spot but _there_ , there is no way of delaying things becoming real anymore. Isak allows his gaze to land on the bed, and it's Even. He doesn't know what he had expected, but his breath races, he gasps, right there in front of Even's mother. But is his boy, his boy is down there, laying on his side, hiding his eyes through his closed lids. His hair, just the way Isak likes it. ****  
  
The sight makes him rush, makes him forget how much he is scared. Isak reaches for the handles of the bed, carefully, as if it is scalding hot. Isak has to use every single cell not to touch him, tenderly as Even deserves. ****  
****  
Isak forgets Even's mother watching from the behind, ignores all his self-defense instincts. Isak leans in ever so slowly, reaches to tuck Even's hair behind his ear with love, so he can whisper a hoarse, "Hey, beautiful." ****  
****  
Even has no reaction. Isak is confused, he reaches for his hand, horrified to see he’s tied to the bed.  
  
"Why he's tied up?!" Isak storms, more desperate than raged.  
  
"He was too agitated..."  
  
Without permission, Isak rushes to untie those fabrics around Even's wrists, freeing his hands that fall inert onto the bed. Isak examines the pinkish of the marks and feels his heart sinking to his stomach.  
  
His heart is bleeding. Isak wants to wake up.  
  
Isak squats down, leveling their eyes and calling him, "Even?"  
  
Even doesn't open his eyes, but the worst part is that he doesn't smile, which is foreign to this boy that is the light. ****  
****  
Isak shakes Even's shoulder lightly and begs through a shaken whispering that no one else will hear, "Buuunny? Let's go home."  
  
Even shifts, barely, his blue eyes opening at Isak, who holds his breath as Even speaks, "They won't let me be a pilot now." ****  
****  
Isak gets lost in the sorrow of those deep seas, without a single word to comfort him. ****  
****  
"What did they give him?" Isak asks alarmed, his eyes on him all the time.  
**  
** "Nothing. This is something that happens to him."

 **  
**.

 

Isak doesn't go to work, he sits by Even's bed, close to his head, watching Even's chest moving, nothing else. Isak fists the rails of the bed, rests his chin over the cold metal and guards him against any harm. Isak begs him to answer whenever Sigrid leaves them, which Isak suspects she’s doing more than she has to.

 ****  
"I don't understand. Why are you so sad? What has happened?"  
****  
It's like Even is half dead, is terrifying. The only sign of life being when Isak takes his hands and Even's lips part with a louder breathing, like he’s trying to escape his body but he can't.  
  
His lips are so, so dry. Every time they’re left alone, Isak sinks the tip of his fingers into the glass of water over the nightstand, then drops it onto the fleshy lips that people have no clue are kissed by another boy.

 **  
**.

 

"Just one bit," says Evens mother with the spoon almost touching Even's lips.

 ****No response. ****  
****  
Isak has got to know Even has barely eaten in those past days. Isak stares with widening eyes at her attempts, worry stamped in both their faces. ****  
****  
She doesn't warn Isak when she blurts out, "For Isak, baby. Just one bit for Isak." ****  
****  
It surprises them both when Even opens his mouth, faintly, even though not his eyes. Even takes three bits, breathing like he's running a marathon, not eating porridge. They smile to their little victory that feels like conquering a war in this long-running day. ****  
****  
Three bits until Even flickers his eyes open at Isak. Isak who reads all the things he needs from it. Isak turns to her and pleads with the shake of his head, _'It's enough'._ ****  
****  
Isak is all leaned over him when his gaze lands down on his boy again. Even is looking at him, really looking at him, with something close to a servant to his God. The relief and thankfulness in them split Isaks heart in two. The gaze their share, it means one thousand words. And Isak realizes they are loving each other too much, but before he can act on it, Even's mother has to use the bathroom. Again. ****  
**  
** When she leaves, they look at each other for minutes straight. Isak smiles all the time, brushing a thumb on his forehead. He conveys all the words the world won't allow him to say, then draws three letters over his chest. When Evens lids fall shut, Isak chokes a gasp.

 **  
**.

 

Isak has lost count of the hours when they tell them the faithful words, "Visiting hours are closed."

 ****Isak can't kiss him goodbye.  
****  
Isak leaves with Even's mother, feeling like he's leaving his flesh and bones behind. Isak checks where she goes and indicates the contrary direction. He says goodbye and hugs, promising to be there the next morning. Isak waves and waits, then turns around the building when she can no longer see him. He peeks the entrance again before sitting in a gutter. Isak won't leave, doesn't know when this has been decided, just knows he will sit on this ground, hugs his own knees and wait for the Sunrise, like a loyal dog won't leave his owner. Isak will wait until he can see him again and tells him he loves him. More this minute than the one before and the one before that. That Isak doesn't know why, but it's just like that.

 **  
**.

 

It's probably after midnight when the front door startles Isak again. He raises his head that was lying on his arms. It's a man he can barely recognize but that Isak has no doubt was there in the background noise of his prior visits. Isak watches the movements out of the corner of his eyes, scared that he's going to kick him out. Isak has no clue what he would do, he would probably burst out crying.  
****  
"Nothing flares up my asthma more than smoking," he says, leaning his back against the wall. And Isak has to peek over his shoulders, trying to find the target of his words. He finds no one, what makes him look at the guy for a first. ****  
****  
The man is as tall as Isak, maybe blonde, not easily discernible on this light. He doesn't look at Isak, once, which makes Isak wonder if the stress of these events has finally taken its toll on him and made his mind snap. ****  
****  
"But if I'm on it," says the man striking a light, cupping the flame between his hands and lightning an unmistakable cigarette. "I might as well take my sweet time." ****  
****  
Isak's brows move in confusion. ****  
****  
"We change shifts now, which would make it the perfect time if one would to ever sneak inside. And if that was the case, it would be so hard to find out because we don't check any patient who is under minimum vigilance until at least nine o'clock."  
  
Isak is stuck, doesn't believe what is being suggested. Is it a trap? ****  
****  
"C'mon, kid," he speaks exasperated. "Doesn't get clearer than that." ****  
****  
Isak raises his eyes, defeated and pale under the dim pole light, "Why?" ****  
****  
The man shrugs, staring ahead, "I had a brother once too." ****  
****  
Isak stands up, his heart fluttering to the slightest flame of hope. He looks at the man who won't look him back, Isak's mouth opens and closes as a hazed fish, speechless. He doesn't find words, so he walks away dazed with a lump in his throat. Does he have any clue what he has given Isak? The amount of money he would pay, if he ever had some. All of sudden Isak halts, gets back to him extending a hand and saying, "Isak."  
  
The man raises his eyes, surprise in them, when he accepts it and says, "Eskild."  
  
Sometimes angels are people. **  
**

**  
**.

 

"I missed you," Even mutters when Isak lies beside him on the single bed with a deep sigh shakes both their bodies, burying his nose under the cascade formed by Even's hair.

The moon still there outside even if there is no proof or light. **  
** **  
** "I was just on the other side of the door," Isak lies. White lies that have never ever fooled no one. Not Even, for sure.  
  
"No. Before." **  
** **  
** Isak doesn't get it nor can he discern Even's features. But he likes these times when the dark is so dark every word seems like leaving from a confessional. When Even’s presence gets so stronger he becomes extracorporeal and floods all of Isak's sensory experiences. When Isak can say by the way he’s breathing, without sight or doubt _his eyes are closed_ , or _they are not._ **  
** **  
** Isak works with his hands, and gentleness, smelling Even’s cheek while wrapping him in the blanket with his arms inside it, as you do to a newborn. And selfishly wishing _just keep your eyes on me_ when all Even will see is dark. **  
** **  
** "Before today?" It's all Isak says. **  
** **  
** Isak senses Even's eyes closing as he murmurs, "Before you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr for drafts: nessauepa


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bear with a little more angst before we can move to happier times? <3
> 
> I really recommend you to play the song linked in the middle of the chapter, it's heartbreakingly beautiful.

**St. Mary's, December 24th, 1961**

 

Time passes by in batches of days. And it's hard, it's fucking hard, man. Every day, Isak keeps his promise, shoving down toast, eggs, sausage, bacon, then heading to the bakeshop with a full stomach, but leaving his heart behind. In its place an empty chamber with nothing but spider webs that tickles all the time. Every other minute, though, is dedicated to Even. Isak is there each step of the way, for things no lovers should witness, for Even's ribs becoming more prominent, for him growing weaker.

Now and then, Isak catches Even's mom glancing at him weirdly, these times Isak has to help with his strength, helping to sustain Even so they can change the sheets or the times Isak borrows him his sweetness, with smiles and patience getting him to eat, which Isak cheers as though Even is winning an Olympiad. It's like she's expecting the moment Isak will snap, and not come back. If Isak were braver, he would tell her that before all this trouble and mess, her boy had touched his soul irreversibly.  
  
She never says a thing, not when she catches Isak's lips on Even's forehead, or when she joins them in the room to Isak sweetly talking Even into walking, all leaned over him, their noses slow-rubbing. One morning Isak oversleeps, she gets him leaving Even's bedroom with nested hair and pillow marks in his cheeks. Unmistakable, but she is a mummy these times. Though she does intensify her askings for Even to do things _for Isak_ , even in front of his relatives. People shift uncomfortably, but they accept it, that Even is sick, and he has a special friend who won't leave his side.  
  
It gets Isak thinking why he was looking for this sort of validation to start with, when the only thing that matters is lying inert on these sheets. It puts things into perspective, makes him hold Even's hand next time they come to visit. Even breathes better when he holds his hands, and Isak has decided he won't sacrifice Even's well-being for what they may think.  
  
Because in the end, it's just them. In days that are like nights and nights that cost to fade away. Nights that Even startles Isak out of sleep, assaulting his lips and fisting his shirt to plead, _"Isak, stay."_  
  
Some are just about taking all of Isak's sanity away, trying to hold Even in place, rocking him against him as he chants his crying and weak lullaby, _"Leave, Isak. Leave."_  
  
Isak manages to shush him into sleep most of these nights, but the dullest ones Even despairs, he goes as further as stating, _"I don't have any more feelings in me. It's all gone. I love you no more."_  
  
To what Isak crushes Even's face between his hands, forces his lost eyes to sustain his glance, as soft as he can when he knows Even needs harshness. These times crudity contrasts with the saddest of the smiles as Isak says, _"Liar."_  
  
Isak's smile intensifying into a blue grin when Even won't deny it, his wailing dying as he lowers his head onto Isak's shoulder, defeated by his own incoherence and lack of will.  
  
Isak brushes both of their hairs off their faces, mixes the sweat of their foreheads. Isak has come up with this tactic, where he pulls at Even's thigh to hook this boy's leg over his hips, bringing Even's hand about his neck, so intertwined to each other that maybe it will reach him in his sleep. And if anyone was to enter this room in the middle of the night, there wouldn't be any excuse for it. But excuse Isak if this isn't the main concern in his mind.  
  
Isak who used to fear the augured darkness that clouds the skies before a storm. That feared also the lightning risking the black and the rolling boom of thunder screaming loudly _'the world is so big and you're nothing in the scheme of things'_. Isak who feared loneliness more than anything.  
  
Now the world is crumbling down outside and he would willingly lie on the soaked ground, open his arms and legs, welcoming the full rage of the skies, rather than lie one more night impotently beside someone he's losing in silence and calmness.  
  
In this fucking trench war.  
  
  
  
.  
  
  
  
Isak digs through his belongings for the tie, pausing with a fond smirk when finding the glove once Even stole and that now Isak is keeping in the middle of his clothes. Like a bookmark of happier chapters of their lives. But Isak has no time for this memory lane, not with the things he has planned.  
  
Isak picks up the rumpled bow tie and hangs it around his neck. He turns back from the mirror, fighting to whip it into shape, speaking absentmindedly, "How is it?"  
  
The outfit still fits him, even though now Isak is more man. The sleeves are shorter and now it hugs his torso, and the washed-out green makes it seem cheaper. It's the same tuxedo, just not the same Isak. Isak is now twenty years old, still so young, but with the impression of having lived multiple lives.  
  
There are no acid words this time, which makes Isak lift his eyes, catching Eskild nodding. His eyes shining brighter than any natural moisture would allow it.  
  
Embarrassed, Isak taps his sides as if saying _'okay, then'_ , turning around with a blush. Even was the only one to look at him like that, and still not quite the same. Before he can sneak into Even's room, though, the small radio under his armpit as he straightens his tie, the older man rushes to block his entrance. Eskild replaces Isak's hands, being less Eskild than he has ever been, brushing Isak's hair from his face and saying, "It highlights your eyes."  
  
  
  
.  
  
  
  
_Isak presses play. One decibel louder than silence._  
  
<https://open.spotify.com/track/7shVwhUdVbHpykOfbzvDc1>

 

The sweetness of the melody and the fullness of feelings is what propels Isak forward, sinking the mattress by Even's side and caressing Even's features like a blind man passionate about sculpture.  
  
Even is his world, and is fallen apart. Even is killing him, is breaking his heart. They don't know what is that Even has, or if there is an escape from it. They say harsh labels don't fit his Even, _manic-depressed, psychotic, neurotic_. But when Isak's throat is about to close in on itself, it's when Isak looks at him like this, sleeping with his baby fat lips, and suddenly his heart gets at ease.  
  
Isak is caressing him so lightly that Even won't wake up. But he needs him here for it, so when the tip of his finger finds Even's eyelashes, Isak plays with them until they flicker open.  
  
"Hey, beautiful," Isak whispers, bringing one of Even's hand to caress his thin beard that still doesn't reach his cheek. Leaning into the auto-caressing he has been making on his behalf. "Dance with me."  
  
Even's swollen-sleepy eyes roam Isak's chest, his lips parting in a surprise recognition.  
  
Even who ends somehow on his feet, his cheek resting on Isak's shoulder like a baby that still can't sustain his neck. Isak wraps him against his chest with his arms that are the main thing keeping him up in reality. Isak knows Even is going beyond his might for him. Even has no energy left, so Isak has to be his power, his thunder. And Isak tries to rock them in circles but it's too much bearing two bodies, so they end up just pressed against each other.  
  
Even isn't crying. Today is one of the good nights, he won't be demanding Isak to leave, or to stay. Isak in those past weeks has learned to read his wanting, has memorized Even's face when crying, a knowledge he has never wanted.  
  
Isak sways their upper bodies, stuck in place, drunk on Even's neck scent, it makes his head spiral. He feels so in love, so in love he could die from it, poisoned, defeated by the sweetest of the killers. _In love,_  absurd, it implies there is an out of it. Isak love is a _period_ . As constant as the _Northern star_.  
  
Isak kisses Even's neck, which seems just inevitable for breathing Even in is always disorienting. He uses tongue to savor it. It's not sexual, it's primitive. Isak runs his mouth against the long line that Even's neck makes when he tilts it to the side in silent permission. In a daze, Isak barely registers that Even is responding to any of his touches for a change.  
  
Isak follows the paths Even are offering him, opening up for Isak like a damn sunflower in the dawn. Isak brushes his lower lip against the rough skin of Even's stubbled chin, with sounds of kisses and breathing intertwined. Then he goes down his Adam's apple as he exposes it craning his neck back. Isak is in a cathartic experience of sipping and softly sucking, and for minutes oblivious about things that aren't how in love their bodies are yet.  
  
Isak's kisses become erratic and frenetic in his way down Even's collarbone and his shoulders. Isak kisses fabric passionately as if it's part of Even's body. Isak rolls Even's sleeve up to kiss his biceps, lifts Even's hand to follow a path until his forearm. Then brings Even's palm to his lips and can't stop kissing it, and who does that? But Isak kisses are more than that tonight, it’s every single fear compiled. It's too much, so he drops his face onto Even's chest breathing through his nose, both their hands crushed together under his cheekbone. But under clothing and skin, under their broken breathing, there are the undeniable pounds of Even's accelerated heart. It gives him faith.  
  
"This is just a crossroad." Even's deep and hoarse voice startles Isak.  
  
It gets to him, that he has reached the point Even's voice doesn't feel natural.  
  
"We were just going and it was easy," Even continues. "But now you gotta stop."  
  
"What are you saying?" Isak says over their heartbeats.  
  
"You're not a teddy bear, Isak. It's your life, and this is just a fork."  
  
"It's no fork if there is no option."  
  
"You have options. You owe me nothing.”  
  
Isak cranes his neck back, clutching Even's hand over his chest for dear life, has him looking back at him and it's powerful. Isak shakes his head along with the words, "I have taken the red pill a long time ago."  
  
Even's lids close, his forehead meeting Isak's. The intimacy though, fuck, Isak missed Even being the one initiating any touch. It's so overwhelming that makes his heart pick up, and frees the floodgates of his tears.  
  
"Some days you won't answer me," says Isak and his voice betrays him, cracking in the end.  
  
With a painful sigh, Even sprinkles his warm breath over Isak's face.  
  
"I don't understand," Isak insists.  
  
Now Isak is crying, tears rolling freely down his face. And this isn’t what he had planned when he reunited all his bluntness to ask Even's mother to have this night. But Even is more responsive he has ever been, and Isak reveals on it.  
  
"Almost everything you are is your mind," says Even finally. "If your mind doesn't tell your heart to beat, it won't. If your mind doesn't move your muscles, you are stuck. If your mind erases your thoughts, you can’t do anything about it. My head is fucked up, sometimes it whirls with so many thoughts that they mix up and it feels like a big white mess of nothing. Everything becomes nothing. And you can't escape your own head."

Even pauses, swallows hard.  
  
"You lying here all sad is killing me," says Even and they are immovable, pressed forehead against forehead. “I can't stand it, bunny."  
  
Isak half gasps, half sobs to the nickname he hasn't heard for a while. Isak lets himself be weaker as he can see more strength in Even. Like they’re in a thin balance.  
  
"You never say you love me anymore," says Isak, feeling ashamed for being this selfish little creature. "Is your mind erasing me too?"  
  
"You were never a thing from my mind, Isak," Even mutters, sliding his other hand underneath Isak's tuxedo on his lower back, seeking for Isak's skin after so long. Isak almost moans when he brushes the bottom of his spine. And this has long ago stopped being a dance. "You run in my blood. I would have to drain myself empty to erase you."  
  
"So why won't you say it?"  
  
"This is me cutting myself open to let you go."  
  
He says that but they are still firmly holding hands between their hearts, like two sweethearts in love at a prom.  
  
“Let me in again," Isak implores.  
  
"Why, Isak?"  
  
"I love you."  
  
"What is even left to love? Maybe you love a memory."  
  
"I could tell you about all the things make me love you, but this would be bullshit. Because I love you beyond your best traits, I know I would love you if you were way worse, I would love your worst, maybe I would love you if you were a monster. And I'm so glad that I got to love you because I wouldn't trust myself not to love you if you didn't deserve it. But also, isn't this the beauty of it? That my love isn't conditioned to what of good you have, it’s there despite everything else. And the things that don't make me love you, those are the meaningful ones. I was never supposed to love you in the first place, you were not supposed to love me. It's a mystery, but you and I ended up loving each other. And tell me how this isn't a miracle? Why should we give up our miracle?"

"Look at me, to what I have become,” says Even leaning back. “Look at how I'm now, look at my hair. Look at my body disappearing. Isak, I have nightmares you are leaving, but the worst of them are the ones you are staying. I can't even brush my teeth some days, and you won't leave. You're seeing everything. And this hurts me. Look at me, Isak, and be honest, what do you feel?"

Isak shrugs with one shoulder, grimaces and says, "I feel lucky."  
  
Even screws his face, chewing his lips, and begins to cry silently, like this reply has undone him.  
  
"Even, look at me, baby," says Isak with urgency, then almost wincing when Even gives him indeed the full power of his tearful gaze. Through them, Isak is seeing him naked. “Am I lying?"

Isak asks because more than telling him, Isak needs him to know it.

Even’s lost, big blue eyes flit between Isaks left and right eyes, and his beautiful lips says as he screws his face again, "No."

Even is a piece of art, even when crying.

Isak smashes a kiss onto Even's forehead, so content in this minute alone. "So, does it make sense for us to be apart?"  
  
Even breathes like it hurts to decide, so Isak brushes their cheeks together to remind Even there are feelings will help him find the right answer.  
  
"It’s hard to be with me," says Even low.

Isak's heart swells.  
  
"I don't like it easy."  
  
Even huffs, in a humid gasp, and it's amazing. Isak chuckles through his own tears. It's the Sun, it’s the Sun right there. Cause maybe he is tired and making it up, but Even’s breath resembled a smile.

“I wish you wouldn't be here when it's bad.”

“Do you, Even?”

Isak knows how to read through Even's bullshit, makes him smile for no reason.

“No,” Even admits, peeking at him.

“Stop thinking too much, bunny, just let it be,“ says Isak with softness wrapping his words. “Just keep loving me. And we will figure out.”  
  
“I don't _love_ you, Isak,” says Even. "You have no idea what is that I feel for you. There was no day you hadn't been under my skin since I first laid eyes on you.”  
  
"You saw me in primary, Even."  
  
"No day."  
  
"When did you first saw me?" Isak furrows.  
  
"You know that cobblestone wall at school? You were walking over it, sliding your hockey stick against the rocks, making so much noise. I was thirteen years old and a boy was racing my heart."  
  
"But..." Isak has a hard time concealing this picture with his memories. "This means you saw me first. I _—_ I always thought I had noticed you first. That you looked back because I was staring."  
  
Oddly, Isak feels relieved.  
  
"You were always my liability. You get now why I don't say it back?"  
  
“What is the point, Even? If I know you love me?” Isak counter-attacks.

Even keeps silent.

“You love me,” Isak states, playing the game they had been playing before all of this, telling their feelings on behalf of each other.  
  
Isak peeks at him expectantly, the ball at Even's court now.

“I know what you want me to say.”

“So?” says Isak raising a brow in defy.

Even sighs and says, “I never really doubted you love me, Isak.”  
  
Isak jerks his eyes at him and smiles innocently.  
  
"Fuck, your smile," Even closes his eyes for a bit. “I miss your happiness.”

Isak wants to say the same but knows it wouldn't be fair.

“You love me so much you can't see an ending for it,” Isak continues, maneuvering Even in by his waist.

Even melts, fucking melts onto him, so close that their noses are bumping. Even says shyly, “You love me more than you have loved anyone else.”

“You love me and you would marry me,” says Isak grinning.

“You love me and you think I'm getting better.”

“You love me and you're getting better.”

“You love me more than anyone else has loved me,” says Even.

“You love me more than I thought anyone could love me,” says Isak lower.

“I love you, Isak,” Even bursts out, breaks their game, then whispers a breathless and obsessive sequence of ‘ _I love you’_ in his ear, makes Isak bury his fingers on his back.  
  
Isak ends up in that place Even's neck meets his ear, the house of his goosebumps. He pecks it before begging, "Let's stay together."  
  
Even shivers as Isak knew he would, then clutches his arms. Isak keeps forcing himself in, pressing heart-pinching kisses that just brush Even's skin, whispering and whispering _‘together’,_ until Even is repeating and repeating, in a trance, _‘Okay.’_

"Okay?" Isak holds his face between his hands.

"Okay," Even's lips form the words unleashes Isak's smile. Then he says it again nodding, "Okay."

It's a sort of contract, what happened that day.  
  
"Baby, I'm so tired," Even pleads, at some point between _‘okays’._ “I don't think I can keep standing.”  
  
Isak kisses his cheek ever so gently, reassuring him it's okay. That _okay_ is the word of the month. Isak bends and picks him up with one arm under his legs. Even gaps, but obliges and rests his head against the crook of Isak's neck.  
  
Isak lays him on the bed with a huff, Even has lost some pounds these weeks, but he's still a big man. Isak covers him with a blanket, tucks it under him on his sides, the way Even’s mother always do, and can't help staring at his face for a while. His lashes are not flickering, he seems in peace and this warms his heart. But when he’s about to avert his eyes to change his clothes and join him there, Even speaks up.  
  
"I can't fight the love of my life."

And for Isak is left the realization, there is no life without his Even. Not anymore. He would make hell his resort in order to stay by his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It always makes me overwhelmed to receive each one of your comments.  
> It's something I don't think I will ever get used to, that people will take their time to comment on my stories.  
> <3
> 
> I LOVE YOU ALL, YOU ARE SO NICE!
> 
> Ps: small disclaimer. The song was released much after 1961 but I had to use it.


End file.
